#this is the biggest and most complex art project i’ve ever worked on
Note
I honestly would love to talk to you about 3d because I really like your 3d works but i' m like really shy so , do you have any advice you would like to give people starting doing 3d art? (sorry if bad english)
I do!! I’m so sorry this took me so long to answer I’ve been busy and wanted to explain this in a proper/ thought out way so here’s just some things about my experience getting into 3D below the cut.
Okay so I think one of the biggest things you should know about before getting into 3D modeling is that you don’t necessarily need to be an art person to get into 3D modeling?
I’m mostly an illustrator and sometimes and animator but I’ve found that those skills don’t really transfer over into 3D as much? If that makes sense. Of course it helps for things like texturing but it’s not the exact same thing they’re very different skill sets.
As long as you have a laptop/ or pc already on hand it costs nothing to get into 3D modeling. Most programs are free (blender and blockbench are at the very least and those are the two I use) and I don’t use any fancy equipment to model I just use the trackpad on my laptop and I find that easier than my drawing tablet. (I know a lot of people who model use a mouse but I get by fine without one)
If you’ve ever tried to get into 3D modeling, opened up a program, and then went “wow this is really overwhelming” I’d recommend using blockbench. It’s a 100% free, open source program intended to be used to model and animate entities in minecraft but you obviously don’t have to do that. It’s relatively limited, you won’t get like high poly really smooth models but it has enough tools to acclimate you to modeling and learn some of the shortcuts. I like it because there isn’t a lot going on with the program so you aren’t just overwhelmed with options. You can also edit and pose minecraft skins in this program if that’s something you’re interested in.
I’ll link some tutorials at the end that helped me if anyone reading this wants some guidance on getting into block bench and I might stick in some blender stuff too. For what I do I model and texture in block bench then export it into blender so I can do some lighting effects and render the model.
By biggest pieces of advice is really just to:
-Don’t let it frustrate you. If something isn’t working or you’re confused walk away, think things through, and then come back to your project. Don’t feel scared to consult tutorials or ancient reddit posts to try to troubleshoot. Just don’t troubleshoot while frustrated, that always makes me want to drop the whole process. Don’t feel discouraged if you have bumps in the road it gets so much easier after you’ve done it a few times.
-Never spend money on courses/ programs. Maybe this is because I’m broke but like unless you know you’re really into it and you’ve exhausted all your resources it’s not worth buying something. There’s so many free resources and so many people out there who are willing to help you out. I’m more than willing to help anyone if they have any problems with blockbench. Artists should uplift other artists my inbox is always open to questions.
-Start small and slow with projects and build from there. I think this applies to art in general but if you start out with a big complex project you will only confuse yourself. Just start small and familiarize yourself with your tools. Your first model may not look the best and thats okay (I definitely made some scary looking stuff that hasn’t seen the light of day)
-You don’t need to know a program inside out before you start. I’m better with hands on learning so being able to explore myself helped me personally. I still don’t know everything about blockbench (I haven’t even touched the animate tab) and I know nothing in blender other than rigging together lighting and moving around the camera. That doesn’t mean I can’t render cool stuff.
-Learn the keyboard shortcuts!!!! Can’t emphasize this one enough but it’s true. It’s so much easier to really navigate and use blockbench once you know the keyboard shortcuts. ctrl z to undo and ctrl y to redo are essential to know. Most functions you can hover over and they’ll show you the shortcuts. Don’t be stubborn like me and learn them they’ll just make your life easier.
-Organize your cubes when modeling, use folders to their fullest potential and name them when you can. It gets confusing quick and you can always select a cube to show you where it is but it’s so much easier for your to label things as something like “left leg” than “cube43”.
Okay here’s some tutorials now:
(side note, not sure what your native language is anon but all these tutorials are in english. A lot of blockbench tutorials are sparse and blockbench is sourcing community translations of the program in a ton of different languages [including French, Portuguese, and Spanish] so check those out if you’re interested)
The fundamentals of blockbench, just some very basic stuff about modeling and how things work
youtube
This one is a little longer and I didn’t follow it exactly but I feel like this explained a lot about the basics of modeling that helped me:
youtube
This video is all about texturing and I found it very informative. It’s short but to the point and covers a lot of the different options with texturing
youtube
This is one of the only tutorials I could find about exporting models from blockbench and importing them into blender to render out. I wouldn’t worry about this step yet until you got modeling down and want to present your work nicely.
youtube
This tutorial is about rendering and using hdris in blender. I wouldn’t worry about this one either until your more comfortable with modeling but it’s a really great resource on how to make your model look really nice.
youtube
Another don’t worry about it yet tutorial! Lighting in blender, this is a really great detailed overview of lighting in blender. If you already learned how to use hdris in the last tutorial you might not really want to worry about this but if you want to use more dynamic and even colorful lighting this is a really great resource!
youtube
#You never have to apologize for your english anon! Your english is great#i hope my english was coherent enough and this wasn’t too overwhelming i just have a lot to say#And for anyone readinf this let me know if you have questions#im generally new to this but im happy to help others learn.#blockbench#3d modeling
1 note
·
View note
Text
after-life (2022)
paper mache, other recycled materials, acrylic paint
#im honestly just in shock that I actually finished this#like#this is the biggest and most complex art project i’ve ever worked on#presenting it tomorrow!! i cannot wait for everyone to see!!#art#sculpture#mushrooms#decay#recycling#after life#forestcore#mushroomcore#contemporary#paper mache#holographic#yeg
23K notes
·
View notes
Text
Too busy.
A/N: I am so sorry this took a while to get out, but here it is! I hope you all enjoy, it is based off a request that @tomhollandlol sent me and I hope you also enjoy and thanks again for your patience. I did change a couple of things but stuck to the basic concept, I hope you don’t mind 💕
Request: Angst one shot, they have 2 kids together, different scenarios, he never pays attention and does something else and is always too busy.
Warnings: Bit of swearing, mentions of sex.
W/C: 4.2K
This last six months had been the hardest she’d ever had to go through, in her entire six years of marriage to Tom, this had been the hardest. Having two kids on top of that didn’t make it any easier, she felt alone, more alone than she had in her life, she was bringing up two children, seemingly on her own. Their eldest was almost four and their youngest was nine months old and teething, which meant she cried a lot.
Tom had been there for most of their journey, he shared the work load and it made life easier but this last six months haven’t ben the case. He became busier, he had two projects going at once and whilst she would happily make allowances for his career it was becoming too much for her. She hated the assumption that things should be easy because she was a stay-at-home mum but that was far from the truth. The children were so young that they needed her constant and undivided attention.
She was struggling to give two children her undivided attention and recently she’s become run down, completely running of fumes. She lives her life in a constant state of tired, she barely does a thing for herself, hell even a shower seemed like a hard task half of the time and Tom? Well half of the time she wasn’t a hundred per cent sure exactly what it was he was doing. She wondered how he hadn’t noticed, how he hadn’t seen the tiredness she constantly displayed.
Half of the mums at school had noticed, she saw it in their looks of pity when she arrived with her son, looking run down and disheveled because she couldn’t make herself look presentable. She didn’t have the time because either her baby would need something or her four-year-old which left no time for herself in a morning.
“Tom?” She shouted as she bounced Ava on her hip.
“Yeah?” He shouted back from where ever he was in the house.
“Can I get your help please?”
“Y/N, I’m busy.”
“You’re always busy.” She muttered to herself as she gave up and tried to soothe Ava on her own whilst making Noah’s lunch.
**
“Tom, I’ve just cleaned there.” She spoke, almost in disbelief as she watched her husband place his golf clubs in the middle of the hall.
“I’ll move them in a bit.” He shrugged. “I need to read over some stuff.” He said as he wandered down the hall and into his office. She couldn’t help herself as she flipped him off on his way, thankful he couldn’t see.
**
“Tom? Is there any chance you can take Noah to school tomorrow? I need to take Ava to an appointment and I don’t wanna be late again.”
“I can’t darling, I’m busy.” He answered, eyes on his laptop.
“Tom, please? I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” She tried and Tom looked up at her.
“Y/N/N, I am really busy right now. Just take Noah into school earlier and then you won’t be late.” He said and she looked at him in disbelief.
“Right, yeah, okay.” She huffed and left his office, shutting the door with enough force to let him know she was upset with him.
**
“Daddy! Look what I did.” Noah screamed as he made his way through the door.
“I’ll have a look in a bit my love, I’m busy at the moment.” Tom answered and their son huffed in response.
**
“Daddy!” Noah shouted as he ran into his father’s open arms. “Can we go for ice-cream?” He asked excitedly.
“Ask mummy, I have some work to do.” Tom said and Noah visibly deflated.
“She already said no, she’s too tired.” Noah mocked his mother’s voice.
“Well I expect she is tired.” Tom said, they never bad mouthed each other in front of the children. It wasn’t something either of them did.
“Why? She doesn’t work.” Noah folded his arms over his chest and Tom looked at him in a scalding manner.
“That’s not nice. Your mummy works really hard to make sure everything and everyone is okay. Don’t talk about her like that.”
“But she doesn’t do anything. She looks after us, my friends mummy works and she’s fine. Everyone at school has said it, she has nothing to be tired about, that’s what my friend’s mummy’s say.” Noah huffed, he had a bit of a temper streak. Tom’s heart plummeted, where people really shit talking his wife? To the point his son had become subject to it.
“That’s enough now Noah.” Tom said as he set his son down.
“Whatever. You’re always too busy and mummy’s always too tired. You’re both boring.” He snapped before running into his bedroom and slamming the door. This made Tom’s heart shatter, they were both trying to do the right thing. Tom really contemplated his life choices and in hind sight he wished he’d done something sooner, especially with the conversation he was about to have that evening.
**
“Tom, you are never here.” She exclaimed, a small comment having sparked an argument that had her struggling to keep her voice down.
“I’m busy. Look in a couple of months I’ll be here.” He said and she huffed folding her arms over her chest.
“You’re always busy Tom. I can’t remember the last time you put us first.”
“I’m doing this so I can take some more time off, Y/N, I don’t wanna be that guy but I earn the money, I can’t just stop working.” He snapped and she felt her anger rise in response.
“That’s bullshit,” she hissed out and he was taken aback by her tone. “You were in some of the biggest movies going a few years back. We are not struggling for money, that is some bullshit excuse for the fact that you’re not around.” She hissed, voice laced in nothing but venom.
“Look, I have a week off starting tomorrow, I don’t need to be anywhere and I won’t have any responsibilities, I can help.” He offered and she sighed, anger leaving her with nothing but defeat.
“I hope so.” She shrugged and Tom looked at her carefully.
“What do you mean?” He asked, there was something in her tone that scared him.
“I mean,” she sighed. “I can’t keep doing this, I’m tired and I need more from you.” She didn’t sound angry just tired and Tom felt his heart drop.
“Meaning?” He asked tentatively.
“Meaning, I can’t carry on doing this and next time it’s going to be a very different conversation. A conversation about us that I really don’t want to have but it’s come to that.” She sighed out before turning on her heel and leaving Tom with his thoughts. His heart shattered, had he really been so neglectful?
Tom was free for a week, which helped slightly because their son was always itching to spend time with his father. She thought this would mean that she got a little respite after their conversation the previous night but that’s not how it panned out.
“Y/N?” Her husbands voice echoed through the halls and she couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his tone. She shouted back her location within the house and few seconds later he appeared. “I need you to look after Noah.” He said, their son hot on his heels, she furrowed her brows.
“Why?” She couldn’t help but asked and Tom gave her a sympathetic look.
“I need to get some of this work done and as much as I love him he’s distracting me.” Tom spoke and she couldn’t help but huff, it was always something.
“I thought you were off this week?” She couldn’t help but ask, tone clipped and she instantly regretted using it in front of Noah.
“I was but then my agent emailed this morning and I now have a load of work to do.” He said, there was a sadness laced in his tone but she didn’t care. She passed him feeling bad about it, she needed him to put them first and recently he hasn’t.
“Fine, whatever.” She grumbled out a response and Tom felt awful, he could see how tired she was, he wouldn’t deny that. But these two projects were taking over and he felt just as tired trying to keep up. To anyone else looking in they would have said the couple needed to sit down and have a chat but of course relationships are more complex than that and the couple were still waiting to have said chat.
“Baby, I’m sorry.” Tom spoke and she sighed.
“It’s whatever Tom. He has some schoolwork he should be doing anyway.” She said, tone defeated and Tom sighed before nodding and making his way back into his office. He wanted to say something but he was afraid to start an argument in front of the children, the two had agreed that their arguments would be kept private, the children didn’t need to know about them.
She spent the afternoon trying to split herself between helping Noah with his math’s work and Ava with her teething. Noah was a bright child when it came to English and Art but Math’s? He was no good at and required a lot of help. She found herself growing frustrated the more she went through the work, she felt guilty but she was so tired she couldn’t help it.
“No, Noah. I’ve shown you this now. Come on, you need to work with me.” She said and instantly regretted the words.
“Mummy, I am trying but I don’t get it.” Noah said back as Ava burst into another flood of tears. She jumped up from her seat, Noah making a noise of annoyance at her actions. She scooped Ava into her arms and rocked her, it was making no difference, the ache in the child’s gum causing ample discomfort.
“Ava come on, shh, it’s okay. Calm down.” She said as she hastily scanned the living room in search of her teething ring. Her eyes landing on the object and she hastily picked it up before handing it to her daughter. She placed the ring in her mouth and instantly her screams calmed to small cries. Once she was settled enough, Y/N placed her back in her high chair and proceeded to help Noah.
She was tired by the end of the evening, her only job being left was to put Noah to bed and he just wouldn’t settle either. He wasn’t great at bed times, he was an alert child who found it hard to switch off for the day.
“Mummy, can we please have another story?” He asked and she felt herself deflate, all she wanted was to have a bath and go to bed.
“But sweetheart, I’ve already read two.” She tried to reason and Noah threw his book onto the floor which made her sigh out as she retrieved it.
“Please mummy? I’m not even tired, can’t I just play with my toys?” He asked, arms folded across his chest and she wasn’t prepared for what was to come next, signs of his temper tantrum approaching and fast.
“No sweetheart, you have school tomorrow.” She sighed out and she watched as her sons face turned into a rather sour expression.
“So? I’m not tired. How can I sleep if I’m not tired? You’re supposed to read to me.” He said and she sighed.
“Baby, mummy’s tired herself okay.” She said, she really didn’t have it in her to stay awake much longer.
“Then get daddy to read to me.” He huffed and she nodded before standing up and making her way into her husbands office, a soft knock pulling him from his work.
“Come in.” Tom’s voice spoke, eyes still trained on his emails.
“Tom? Can you read to Noah please?” She asked, hopefulness lacing her voice, her husbands eyes finding her tired ones. There was something about the way she looked tonight, the way she looked like she was struggling to keep herself stood that reality hit the man hard.
“Of course baby.” Tom said as he stood and he didn’t miss the flash of shock grace his wife’s face. He felt immensely guilty, he hadn’t been there for past six months and he could see what that was doing to her. “Have you eaten?” Tom asked and she shrugged.
“Bits but I’m not hungry.” She said as she rubbed at her red and tired eyes. Tom felt like an utter dick, he’d taken on too much and left his wife to pick up the pieces.
“You should eat.” Tom said and she shrugged.
“I just want to go to bed Tom.” She whispered out and he nodded in response before making his way over to her and kissing her forehead before pulling her into a hug.
“Then go sleep love. I’ve got Noah.” He spoke and she felt relieved, completely and utterly relieved, she didn’t even want the bath anymore, that could wait until tomorrow. She didn’t miss the excitement in her sons voice as Tom made his way into his room and she smiled before practically face planting the bed and falling asleep.
**
It was eight o clock in the morning when she woke, she felt sluggish as she grabbed for her phone and looked at the time. Heart beat picking up far too quickly for her bodies tired state.
“Shit.” She exclaimed as she rushed out of bed and into Noah’s room, only to find the bed empty. “Noah?” She shouted as she ran down the stairs, her mind was racing, she was running late. How had she slept for so many hours? And how had it gone interrupted?
“In here mummy.” Noah shouted back as she raced into the living room.
“I’m sorry, I’m up, I just need to get changed and then we can set off for school.” She rambled as ran into the kitchen to sort out his breakfast.
“Darling, slow down.” She heard Tom’s voice and she spun around to look at her husband, he had bags under his eyes and his hair was a slight mess. How could he still look so good? She wished she could look as good as he did, even tired.
“What?” She looked around the kitchen, evidence that Noah had already had his breakfast. His school bag filled with the books for the day and his packed lunch.
“I’m gonna take him in. Go and chill out.” He spoke as he pulled her into his chest and kissed the top of her head.
“Thank you.” She sighed and Tom nodded.
“I’ll take Ava and then you can get some rest if you need it, I’ll be back soon. I’ll do the shopping, should be an hour or so.” Tom spoke and her heart soared at his words.
“Did Ava sleep through?” She asked, realizing she’d not been woken up by her crying last night.
“Yeah, a few times. I slept in there, wanted you to catch up on some sleep.” He admitted and she could have cried with the happiness the revelation brought her. “We need to talk when I get home.” He spoke and she nodded. “Okay, well I’ll see you in an hour.” He said and she nodded before kissing her son good bye and making him promise to behave.
**
An hour and a half later and she’d had a relaxing bath, one that she was more than thankful and ready for. She’d even managed to have a hot cup of tea, a stark difference to the cold ones she was used to. She’d even managed to read a chapter of her new book, she still felt like she could sleep for a while but overall relaxed and content.
“Hey.” Tom said as he leant against the doorway to their bedroom. She placed her book down and looked at him.
“Hey,” she said somewhat awkwardly, she wasn’t sure how this conversation was about to go.
“I’ve just put Ava down, will probably give us a good hour or so.” He spoke and she nodded. “So,” he sighed. “We should talk.” He continued and she nodded again, words not being able to find her, she needed to know how he feeling, what he was going to say first.
“I’m sorry, I want you to know that. I’ve been so wrapped up in what I’ve been doing that I haven’t noticed what I was doing to you. I’m so used to you being the one who has everything together, who know exactly what to do that I thought you didn’t need my help as much as you do.” He started and she opened her mouth to speak but no words came out before he beat her to it.
“I know that’s not an excuse, it’s poor on my behalf and I’m sorry. You and the children, you mean everything to me. All I want in life is for you guys to get everything you want and need and I’m sorry that I’ve been the way that I have, there are no excuses.” He said and she felt her heart lift, the two could fix this, fix what has been happened. “But I need something from you.” He spoke and she furrowed her brows as she waited for him to continue.
“I need you to be honest, I need you to tell me what it’s been like to be you. I don’t want you to spare my feelings, I want you to let it all out. I’m listening now, darling, I need to know what this has done to you, how I can make it right.” He said and she nodded slightly before sitting up in bed properly, her back against the head board as she carefully played with her wedding ring. Tom sat carefully on the edge of the bed, he needed to hear what she was about to say.
“Tom, you’ve just not been here.” She started with her biggest problem. “Even when you are in the house it’s like you just expect me to do everything. You expect your clothes to be washed, dried and ironed, you expect your dinner on the table and I never used to mind. You would always say thank you but recently you haven’t and it made me wonder whether or not you just expect it of me, that it’s my job.” She started and Tom kept quiet, he wanted her to continue.
“Tom, you used to be so attentive.” She said as she reached over and took his hand in her own. “You always used to be here, know when I needed help without having to ask. I don’t mind doing all of those things for you, I really don’t but when you don’t get a thanks it feels a little like you’re being used.” She continued and his heart shattered, he would never intentionally use her, he loved her, loved his family.
“That brings me onto the kids, Tom they need so much attention. They want me to split myself in two half of the time and I can’t, it’s impossible. They both need so much from me and given Ava teething I don’t even get a full night’s sleep. I am constantly trying to run off energy that I just don’t have. It wasn’t so bad when Noah was a baby, we took shifts, you helped. Recently though Tom, it’s been me that gets up and tends to her, me that sacrifices sleep.”
“I know that might sound selfish but when you have a partner, a husband who’s supposed to help with all that it gets tiresome. I found myself getting so angry with you, I wanted to be you, I wanted to bury my head in paperwork and think of nothing else. There were days when I honestly wanted nothing to do with you, I didn’t want to be around you because everything little thing you did angered me.”
“I’ve been so tired, my mind is never where it should be. I’m always doing stupid things because I’m so tired. I never feel like I get anything back from you. I’m too tired to have an evening to myself when they have gone to sleep, I just want to sleep myself. I’m always running around after them, something you barely do anymore, sure you play with them but when was the last time you had to deal with one of Noah’s meltdowns?”
“I get that you have a lot on, I get that two projects keep you busy and if we didn’t have kids it wouldn’t affect me as much but we do and it does. I need you to be there for me Tom, I can’t keep doing this alone, I can’t.” She ended her rant and Tom felt awful, he was so angry with himself, she didn��t even sound angry anymore. She sounded like she’d accepted it and she was just tired with the situation, somehow he wishes she was screaming at him right now.
“I’m sorry princess. There are no words, no excuses for what I’ve done. I’m sorry I made you feel like that, it was never my intention. You mean the world to me, you and the kids. Things are gonna change, I promise.” Tom said, he knew now that actions spoke louder than words, it wasn’t what she wanted him to say it was what she wanted him to do.
“On top of all of that Tom, I can’t remember the last time we did anything as a couple. Most of the time I’m asleep when you get to bed, I can’t remember the last time we touched each other, it’s just draining. It all adds up.”
“I know darling. I promise things are gonna change. Why don’t you pick a film and I’ll be back in a minute?” He said and she nodded as she flicked the TV on and got herself comfortable in bed. She couldn’t remember the last time she had a day in bed. Tom returned almost ten minutes later and she wondered where he had gotten to.
“Where did you end up?” She asked as he made his way into the bedroom, two bottles of water in hand.
“Well, I grabbed these, I made sure Ava was still okay and the baby monitor is working properly and I had to send a couple of emails.” He admitted and her heart dropped, after everything she’d just said? He took in her expression as he placed the water down and jumped into bed with her. “Not like that darling, I’ve passed one of my projects onto Harrison and Harry, they’re gonna finish it up.” He said and she relaxed. “I promised things will change and they will.”
**
“Daddy!” Noah shouted as he ran to his father, who was there at the school gate to pick him up, Y/N right there next to him. It had been a while since they both picked him up. Ava was a little more settled today which made things a little easier.
“How was school?” Tom asked enthusiastically and then almost cried when he realised how long it had been since he asked that question.
“Amazing!” Noah gushed as he looked at his mother. “Mummy, you look so pretty.” He spoke and she laughed.
“She always looks pretty.” Tom defended her and Noah nodded.
“Yeah, but she looks extra pretty today.” Noah said. It had been a while since she was able to put effort into her appearance and she felt better for doing it. Even if it was only a nicely picked out outfit and tamed hair. “Can we go for ice cream?”
“You my boy have an obsession.” Tom laughed as he poked his son playfully. “But yeah, I think that’ll be a good idea.” Tom said as he looked to his wife who nodded in response. She didn’t miss the looks of jealousy thrown her way when they saw her with Tom.
“So what did you do this afternoon?” Noah asked his parents as he was being strapped into the back of the car.
“We watched a film.” Tom stated, it was an absolute lie, they’d gotten half an hour into the film before Tom had his head between his wife’s legs. It had been a while since they’d done anything like that and when they both realised that fact. When they both realised how long it had truly been since they’d done anything, they spent most of the afternoon catching up with each other’s bodies. In between tending to their baby of course, they both felt energized after their endeavors between the sheets.
“Was it good?”
“Absolutely amazing.” Y/N answered as Tom slipped into the driver’s seat, she took his hand in hers as she held it in her lap.
“Can we watch another film when we get home?” Noah asked excitedly.
“Sure, how about we go and spend the afternoon doing something fun and then we can go out for tea, go home and watch a film?” Tom suggested and Noah fist bumped the air.
“Yes! Does this mean you two aren’t going to be boring now?” Noah asked and Y/N and Tom found themselves laughing.
“Yes, this means we aren’t going to be boring anymore.”
#tom holland x reader#tom holland angst#tom holland fluff#tom holland x y/n#tom holland one shot#tom holland x female reader
266 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Day 5 of the interviews! let’s give it up for Ligia! :chinhands:
Ligia, author of Love the Guard, Be the King
Latino Heritage Month Featured Author
Mathias' heart has been bleeding since his father, the former King, decided to punish you for his mistakes. As the youngest child of a lesser bourgeois, you were raised in the castle, between the King’s cruelty, the Queen’s friendship, and Mathias’s kindness (or supposed kindness?).
Now, more than twenty Carnivals since your arrival, the King is dead and the Queen’s sickness worsens each day. As the azure taint spreads in the kingdom and the Opalean Wars come to an end, it’s Mathias’s time to sit on the throne.
Will the docile Prince become a kind King, a violent Monarch, or a ruthless Tyrant? Will you have any say in it? And how much will your relationship change?
Love the Guard, Be the King Demo | Author’s Kofi | Read more [here]
Tags: historical, romance
(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT)
Q1: So, tell us a little bit about the projects you’re working on!
With pleasure! Right now, I’m working on three main projects. My personal Visual Novel project, “Love the Guard, Be the King,” a second Visual Novel I’ve been secretly working on with a good friend for the past 10 months or so, and I also have an ongoing book series about hot, quirky supervillains—but I’ll focus only on the first two cause that’s what we’re here for, right? Hahaha.
LtGBtK is a really intimist experience, focused more on the MC’s and RO’s character arcs and how we can change depending on our experiences and how we feel about them. The entire plot happens in only four days, but it takes into account almost 30 years of history—basically Mathias’s (the only RO) entire life!
“Crystal Library” has mystery, romance, magic, 6 ROs, and a ton of memorable scenes already. I’m working on the graphics and the programming for this one, while Coco Nichole (@dreamybard), one of my favorite writers ever, is the brilliant mind behind the plot and all of CL’s characters! I can’t wait to share this one with you all. Romance is optional in both. :)
Q2: What excites you most about using interactive fiction? What are some of the biggest challenges?
What I LOVE and FEAR about all types of interactive fiction is how it invites players to, on a much deeper level, be part of the narrative. When reading books, we all work hard to translate beautiful sentences and scenes into images in your head. We interact with it, yes, but when playing IFs, we also explore the narrative in a different way; we have so much more agency over what happens! We sometimes have different paths to choose from, beautiful illustrations to unlock, or character traits that change depending on our choices… it’s amazing, and, IMO, it’s a very unique way to experience narratives.
But it’s also very complex, very demanding, and it can easily get out of hand if you give the players too many options/branches to follow, mainly when working with small teams or, in my case for LtGBtK, alone. *takes a deep breath* I just hope I’m doing a good job. .-.
Q3: What has been something in your project you’ve had to do a weird amount of research for?
Besides programming lol basically everything. For LtGBtK, I’m trying to create this weird fantasy with a modern-medieval society (?), so I’m constantly researching medieval customs, traditions, tools, and weirdly specific stuff like socks. Did people wear socks in the medieval era? What were their playing cards made of? When was ice cream invented? How did they shave? How did kids become knights? What were their perfumes made of? And soaps? What did they eat? How different was their wine? And what kind of materials or slang or fabrics can I use, and what can I change without completely breaking immersion?
And then I shove all that into a pot and adapt it to a world where Mathias can literally put the world on fire with a wave of his hands. ♥
Q4: Which of your characters is most like you? How?
I think I’m a mix of them all, but mainly Mandra and Rafa (one of my main characters in my supervillain books). They have wildly different personalities and stories, but those two have clear views of the kind of person they want to be, they’re not afraid of their soft sides, and they are ready to work hard to become good at what they love. Rafa has a specially strong connection to her brother, like my siblings and I, and Mand is often locked in an eternal state of wanting to be alone and wanting to be surrounded by family/loved ones, so I guess we meet there too!
Q5: Does your heritage influence your characters as you create them? (How? Why or why not?)
Yes! There are the very basic ways, like habits, names, food, family dynamics, settings (mainly in my books, which are all very Brazilian), and Holidays. And then there’s a more personal way that I’m not entirely sure I can explain because I lived in Brazil for 28 years, and I’m not sure I can put that into words. The classics of our literature are different, Art, architecture, and music developed differently, my country was violently colonized and still faces the results of that violence (including but not limited to structural racism, classism, misogyny etc), I learned some Capoeira in my physical education class at school, we call non-Brazilians “gringos,” and so on. This is my normal, and this is what my characters would see as normal too, because I don’t know any different.
At the very core, all my characters are influenced by my country’s history, by our relationship with other countries, and by the values my parents taught me, passed down to them by my Indigeous-Spanish-Portuguese-German foremothers/fathers. :P
The main, more palpable way my heritage influences my characters, though, is through humor and theme. I think Brazilians have a very specific, sharp, and often very smart kind of humor that, IMO, stems from the type of history our country has, and the way we look at life, sometimes translating pain into humor. As for themes, I usually write about what makes me angry... and there’s a lot in Brazil’s history and modern society that causes me that. :)
But all I know for sure is that I want to show the world Brazilians are much more than samba and soccer.
Q6: What is something you love to see in interactive fiction?
Other people! In the same way I add my history and worldview to my creations, I always approach stories thinking that there’s a whole, well, history behind them. And I love that! Also, I adore choices that feel impactful + good friendships and family relationships + soft romances with mutual respect. ♥
Q7: Any advice to give?
Hmm. Be proud and celebrate who you are and where you’re from. Learning and understanding the world inside us is a life-long process, so it’s always a victory to discover new pieces of ourselves. :) Also, if you can, talk to people that come from different cultures than yours to expand your worldview, don’t be afraid to be soft (the world needs more kindness), and please study personal finance. Seriously. XD
#if: events#latino heritage month#latino authors#cyoa#choose your own adventure#choose your story#interactive fiction
117 notes
·
View notes
Text
the collected poems of todd anderson
christmas day of 1959.
ao3 link here
He knew this day would come.
He’s been dreading it, sure, he’d never really enjoyed Christmas much beforehand, his multiple unopened desk sets epitomised such. At his house, fires weren’t warm, hugs were stiff and silence was punctured by the sounds of laughing children in the house next door. It’d always been this way for the Anderson family. Todd grew to accept it.
But this year was supposed to be different.
He was supposed to spend his Christmas at Welton, with all the Dead Poets.
Usually, the boys would go home to their families for Christmas, but through the efforts of Neil he assembled a complex string of falsities about a gargantuan Latin group project that all the Dead Poets needed to finish.
“Serious business, I care about my education father, why else would have you sent me here?” said Neil over the phone, holding his index finger to his mouth to silence Todd from his chuckling, although all Todd really saw was the wide grin that hid behind it, and the way Neil’s eyes crinkled up all the way, a complete oxymoronic action when Neil was usually on the phone to his father. Todd stifles back laughter and Neil smacks him lightly, only causing him to laugh more.
“Well, that was quicker AND easier than I expected...” Neil states after placing the phone back on it’s cradle and ending the call. “But hey!” Neil squeaks, “We’re all spending Christmas together! The biggest concern was just getting my father to agree, everyone else’s parents seemed fine with it.”
Todd and Neil start to walk, side by side, Neil bumps him playfully.
“I’m so glad you told me, Todd.” Neil turns his head and looks towards the shorter boy. “My Christmases at home aren’t that great either, I’ve always wanted to spend them here, but I could never work up the courage to ask my father, ask Charlie, in our first year he almost called up my father himself. It was hilarious, he had to look up at the phone, he was so short.”
“You and Charlie have been friends for ages then?” Todd queries
“Oh yeah, we met in our last year of preparatory school, he was a pretty mischievous kid, obviously not much has changed.” Neil laughs, “he was just always so confident and sure of himself… I always wanted to be like that, nothing ever got to him.”
“Has that changed?” Todd’s questions were always short and straight to the point. Startling upfrontness in the most unexpected of moments. It was something Todd was known for.
“Not really… I mean, I try to get him to open up… he just isn’t an emotions type of person, I think?” Neil scratches the back of his head. “During our 9th year he went through something really big and not great, but he didn’t tell me a single word about it. To this day I have no idea wahat happened. I tried asking but it didn’t lead anywhere… all I know is some kid had been expelled but it didn’t look like him and Charlie fought or anything because they spent so much time together ....” Neil trails off.
“You know people stare at us sometimes.” Todd blankly states, an unconscious switch being flicked immediately. “When we’re walking to classes, when we go into our dorm, when we exchange smiles in classes… They bump their friends with their shoulders and snicker under their breaths… Have you noticed that Neil?”
Neil’s walking pace slows slightly, “Uh… no, I-uh I didn’t… Do they think we’re-“
“-Maybe.” Todd interrupts before Neil can say The Word. “Bu-but we aren’t, I mean, you were talking about that girl from-“
“-Yeah! Ginny, from the play, wow, I mean, she’s just great.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she is.”
God.
This got awkward.
Nice one Todd.
Did it again.
~~
Ink splatters dried on the paper he cradled so delicately, he stares at the contents once more.
“what wouldn't i give to love myself as feverishly as I love you?
what is the opposite of amnesia?
that is what you are.
sometimes i cant find my way around my memories.
i have to take detours…
i think you were the best one.
little fragments of joy pepper my vacancy
i didn't know that i should want to be hopeful
or that being hopeful meant giving up some intrinsic part of me.
last night i had a dream that we were breathing underwater
flying high in the sky,
arms outstretched,
laughing,
smiling,
hugging,
bodies pressed onto one another.
it didn’t last long.
piece by wretched, fragile piece
i throw out every hated qualm of thee
your impenetrable stare fixed onto me
i have hoped for love that is beyond you being caught by me or me trying to slip through the cracks.
they read me, you, us, with their glacial eyes and think they know
but they don't
and it seems neither do we.”
“Wow, Todd. This is so… different. But good! It’s just, I’ve never seen anything like this in our English class, in the poems we’ve studied… I just… wow.” Neil looks up at Todd, eyes so soft, Neil knows how big of a deal this is to Todd. He doesn’t just share his work with anyone.
“I-I’m glad you liked it.” Todd smiles, it’s almost as if he’s had to completely remove himself from himself in order to let Neil observe and compliment this part of him, he takes the page out of Neil’s hands and places it in his book.
“What-er, who was it about?” Neil gingerly queries.
“I- uh, well.” Todd’s heating up now, he should’ve expected Neil to ask him this question. Dammit. Why was he so stupid for letting him read it. “Well, I-I don’t think you necessarily have to go through something to write a-about it, it-it’s fiction for a reason.”
Neil’s lips downturn slightly, “I guess, but everything that we produce in art- whether that be acting, or poetry writing, painting- whatever… it… subconsciously shows something that you might not necessarily want to show or see, right? Like how Keating got us the other day to choose a poem we liked and recite it… It tells you so much about a person. When Charlie was reading his poem… wasn't all you could think about was how bleak it was?” Neil continues, “The academically and poetically rigorous selection made by Cameron or Knox’s complete devotion and enamoration with the simplest emotion of the human being, love? We hide these parts of ourselves, maybe we view them as flaws and faults of our cognitive machine, but art reveals them all.” Neil delivered a love poem to the class himself. He takes a big breath and lets the words he just spoke sit in the air of their dorm for a while.
“Into the meadows dawn..” Todd clicks his fingers, a vague ritual to jog his memory. “flashes my faun.” Todd recites “O Hunter, snare me his shadow… O Nightingale catch me his strain. Else moonstruck with music and madness, I track him in vain” all they’re doing is staring at each other.
“You- you remembered my poem?” Neil questions.
“Yeah- I went to the library after you said it- wanted to see if there was more… Oscar Wilde…”
“Yeah.”
“I notice them staring now that you mentioned it.” Neil breaks the trajectory of the conversation, “God, they’re all so stupid, it’s as if Judy Garland and President Eisenhower just strutted into the school, arms interlocked!” Todd chuckles. Then more silence.
“Has anything changed, Neil?”
“What do you mean?”
“Between us. What this is. Our comradely bond, as Keating puts it.” Todd chuckles, “ Our co-dependence, attachment at the hip.”
More silence…
“I-I think…” Neil finally states, “that it was never anything it wasn’t already… perhaps we ignored it, suppressed the feeling… but… it was always there.”
“For me, at least.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
~~~
The wind pierced Todd’s skin in tiny microscopic ways, embedding itself under the protection of his coat and completely evading the rest of his physical form, though perhaps the wind wasn’t the cause of the spine-curdling ache he felt, but simply an additional symptom.
Bells rang, green and red Christmas themed paraphernalia adorned the streets he’d previously been driving through, staring out the window at lights and snow that trickled onto an already naturally bleached layer of the ground. His footprints leave indents and obtain a slippery consistency to the outer sole and toe cap. He treads more carefully.
His hands clutch the leather cover of the journal he is hiding underneath his jacket, minimising any further damage that may soon come its way, finally, through minutes of soul-searching and carefully treading through stones and flowers, he makes his way to Neil.
He looks at him with a certain sense of fragility, his stone head protruding from the ground and covered in snow. Todd wipes some away to see the carvings made into him.
His full name.
Aged 17.
Dutiful son of Tom and Susan Perry.
The newness of it all sends a pang to Todd’s stomach as he looks at the other stones weathered with age and the constant bombardment of the elements. That’ll be Neil one day. Flowers not fresh and carvings unreadable. Forgotten to the world and all its inhabitants, rotting in satin lining and cherry oak wood. Todd stifles back a sob and covers his mouth, forcing himself to get it together for just this moment.
“Merry Christmas Neil.” Todd whispers, the words can barely come out. “You-you’re not here physically but you’re here with me, and Charlie, and-and all the other Dead Poets.” he continues, “though- though Charlie isn’t here technically either. He left. Had to. He’s not graduating, at least he’s not at Welton” Todd looks down, brushes his emerging tears away with his shoulder
“I just wanted to come here and give you your gift, I’ve had it in the making for a while now, you’ve seen some of it already. I wish I could’ve given it to you earlier… if I had known this would happen.” he pulls out the journal, and opens it up.
“Here, I’ll read you some.” Todd, though already cold and miserable, situates himself next to Neil’s cold headstone and leans his head on it, opening the journal's contents to its first page.
“Dear Neil,” Todd’s starts, but adds an offside, “It’s dated on the 7th of a while back, my-my birthday.”
“I hope this book finds you well,” Todd’s breath hitches, “especially considering that I’m probably too anxious to deliver it to you. What you’ll see here is what we spoke about the night we first kissed. About freeing ourselves from any subconscious fear or dichotomous dread of both working with and against the grain or being liked or disliked. The people I look up to the most are inspirationally unpopular. So, here’s a suite of poems by yours truly. Hopefully you’ll find your own meaning and reverence in the words my brain has conjured up, words mostly pertaining to you. Every inch of your being alive has me transfixed and enamoured, and I’m truly gobsmacked on the good deed I must’ve committed to have deserved having you in my life.” Todd’s face is red and stuffy from the cold and his breathing is short and punctured.
“You’re sleeping right near me at this moment, and as a sweaty toothed madman once said. We were together. I forgot the rest. Consider this journal a detachable limb of my own self, something you can always carry around and know that I am with you, always. You can suck the life force, the bone marrow out of the words I have written in here and I would applaud and encourage you to do so. Without you, I have no idea where I’d be right now. I owe you so much Neil, you’ve taught me that sometimes the world can be good. That a person’s smile can brighten an entire room. A performance perfectly acted can be a person’s ultimate achievement and their triumph. You are the word phenomenal incarnate Neil, I hope my words do you some sort of justice.
You deserve the world, Neil. I’m brainstorming ways to give it to you.
With love,
Todd.”
——————————————————————————
i hope you guys enjoyed!! its fucking brutal honestly but needed some angst and tragedy in my fictional life to reflect my own.
just a preface that some of the poem todd read's is borrowed from pete wentz old emo livejournal posts because i need to somehow tie my two big interests together and MAN does that man write some gay ass shit. hope your heart doesnt hurt too much <3
creds to @neilscrown on tiktok for posting the headcanon "Todd definitely bought Neil a Christmas present and he never got the chance to give it to him so he would sit in his once shared room and stare at it" it tore my HEART OUT and inspired this rambling
#dead poets society#dead poets#dead poets honour#dead poets fanfiction#anderperry#anderperry fanfic#todd anderson#neil perry#todd and neil
45 notes
·
View notes
Text
Exclusive Visit of 72 Hours! Full Record of “A Dream Like A Dream” Behind the Scenes
Original Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yI4arm9P9nJwE3RMSUW-5Q
Original Author: 杨晋亚
Translator’s note: The original author is part of Yuli Studio, this article is published in Yuli Studio’s Weixin Official Account on 23 Apr 2021 as a part of “Behind the Screens” Volume 640.
On 22 Apr, “A Dream Like A Dream” Wuhan Charity show was still in the midst, countless related topics were already on Weibo Hot Search.
This is probably the hottest play on the internet till date.
A big intellectual property that lasted for 21 years, and now with the addition of the hottest celebrity, debuted for the first time as a Charity Show in honor of the heroes of the pandemic last year, “A Dream Like A Dream” contained stories on stage and backstage.
Before the official start of the play, Yuli Studio walked into the backstage of “A Dream Like A Dream”, and entered the dream in advance.
“A Dream Like A Dream”
Celebrity Cast
On 19 Apr noon, 15 minutes before the first full dress rehearsal for “A Dream Like A Dream”, there were not much audiences, they were all in the lotus pond seats.
Overall producer Wang Keran was suddenly notified that there was someone recording secretly, he immediately called the executive producer Da Shan to check, who had already expressed multiple times that audiences were not the take pictures. Wang Keran face turned gloomy, loudly accused Da Shan of incompetency, stood up, “Trusted friends who are currently seated, I hope that everyone would protect the actors, stop filming.”
Afterwards Wang Keran told us, his anger then was actually “for show”, that situation needed him to make a stand, scold Da Shan so as to alert everyone else, “I needed to kill two birds with one stone, control the scene, protect the actors.”
Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Liang, Huang Lu… the addition of many celebrity actors, caused the interest in “A Dream Like A Dream” to increase.
Protecting his actors, was something that Wang Keran always did ever since he built this group.
Yanghua Theatre and Baoli Theatrical Center collaborated and did some massive and intricate work, in order to ensure that protection project was as per usual, “The theaters put in a lot, the meager profits that this project is giving them, can’t completely cover their massive investment.”
Wang Keran also helped to block countless signature and photograph requests for Xiao Zhan, his good friend had came from afar to Wuhan just for a photograph with Xiao Zhan, but Wang Keran did not agree, “I promised a clean creative environment for my actors.”
The “A Dream Like A Dream” group tried their best to give all the actors an equal, harmonious creative environment, and in here, there is no celebrity actor Xiao Zhan, only Patient No. 5 B.
In the backstage of the Wuhan Qintai Theatre, the plaque on the door of Xiao Zhan’s resting room was not labelled “Xiao Zhan”, but “No. 5”.
Director Chen Limei and Zhang Rui said that the group did not treat Xiao Zhan specially as a celebrity; Actress Huang Lu, who portrayed the role Jiang Hong, had the most scenes with Xiao Zhan, she said that everyone was just actors.
Privately, Xiao Zhan would treat Huang Lu fruits, as well as recommend good motives to her, Huang Lu said, working with Xiao Zhan was not much different from working with other partners, the only difference was that there were suddenly a lot of Xiao Zhan fans leaving messages on her Weibo, most of them were messages of encouragement and support.
“A Dream Like A Dream” , Xiao Zhan, Huang Lu
During the very initial rehearsals, the director closed Huang Lu and Xiao Zhan into a small practice room, in order to cultivate tacit understanding.
“When we were rehearsing the French portion of the play, I knew he was from Chongqing, I would suddenly use French translated to Wuhan dialect to talk to him, what d’ya wanna eat what d’ya wanna eat, and then he would suddenly reply me in Chongqing dialect.”
Huang Lu remembered, when Xiao Zhan entered the group, he had already memorized all of his lines, the tacit understanding between them were built up within 3 or 4 days, and on the details of the performance, they would also inspire each other.
For example, the biggest reaction from the audience in the Wuhan show was the scene in the Parisian apartment, actually contained Xiao Zhan’s designs, when they spoke the lines “Monday Wednesday Friday Tuesday Thursday Saturday and Sunday”, Xiao Zhan suggested that the two of them would lean their heads on each other, so as to give a better effect.
When the two of them were conversing in comedic Japanese scene, there were traces of the old version of the play, but there were new creativity as well, “Pikachu” was from the old version, whereas “sleeping” was an idea that Xiao Zhan came up with.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan, Huang Lu
The duration for “A Dream Like A Dream” was long, the lines voluminous, there was once during rehearsal, one of the actors had a sudden breakage and his lines became more and more scattered, voice lower and lower, that day Director Chen Limei gave him a stern talking to, but in the director’s memory, this problem never occurred to Xiao Zhan.
“Xiao Zhan was very serious, we could all feel that, every night after he went back, he definitely thought through his scenes once more, so that he would not make this kind of mistake.”
Xiao Zhan expressed that his familiarity with the lines had gone to the state that he could say it “whenever”, he was more focused on the “current feeling and the chemistry with his partners.”
Xiao Zhan was very strict with his own expectations, on the 19th after the first full dress rehearsal, there were many audiences who gave his performance good reviews, but he said, “I’m not quite satisfied with today, it wasn’t as good as yesterday.” Although the audiences did not spot any problems with the lines from the scene ”Monday Wednesday Friday Tuesday Thursday Saturday and Sunday”, but after the performance ended, Xiao Zhan himself felt that there were some slight flaws.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan
The lotus pond seats in “A Dream Like A Dream” to Xiao Zhan was a challenge, it made it easy for him to lose concentration, and once you had lost it, it would be easy for the scene to scatter, he described, “the feeling in concerts is that you need to interact simultaneously, plays to me meant that I need to make myself lonely”, so he needed to make sure he could ignore the audiences.
Wang Keran invited theater critics to view the play for the 19th’s full dress rehearsal, after the upper half ended, they were exclaiming in praise of Xiao Zhan’s acting, Wang Keran also proudly recommended this newly found actor to people around him: “He had a different layer of creativity process, the first day we’ve finished the script, he surprised me onstage the second day, it was green but came with a lot of accurate instincts. He constructed the character to be intricate and abundant, but yet layered, not just emotional scenes, everyone could burst into emotions, but he was intricate, lively and entertaining, he conveyed the soul of the character, his sense of pace was this good.”
“A Dream Like A Dream” Performance Stage
The story of “A Dream Like A Dream” and Xiao Zhan had to begin with the Cao Yu 110 Anniversary Special Event last year.
In 2019, Wang Keran heard of Xiao Zhan’s name, but he quickly forgot about it. “Then I was in Wuxi, there was a large excited crowd of people, said that the hottest actor, Xiao Zhan, was in there.”
Until 2020, a psychiatrist friend told Wang Keran, to take note of this actor Xiao Zhan.
“Before then I was an older person, I’ve always picked actors above 35, but after the psychiatrist finished talking, I started subconsciously noticing this person, and then I found out that this person was really interesting.
How interesting? There were a lot of people attacking him, I thought I’d understand what these attacks were, I found out that these people were a contradiction of the most realistic things and most hypocritical things, this era’s idols were different from 5 years ago, they are now placed on a pedestal as a symbol, as something to be fought over or stepped upon. Via Xiao Zhan I noticed the new pulse in the development of society, understood this movement, art should be something that is most compatible with the times, my personal view on plays is just like this, plays should be the current drama action of this moment, and the emotional relationship of the people here and now.”
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan
The commemoration event for Cao Yu, Wang Keran needed to find a young guest who could have a conversation with Wan Fang, a colleague suggested Xiao Zhan, Wang Keran suddenly realized, this was perfect, “The complexity on Xiao Zhan would fully represent the complexity of plays.”
The first time he met Xiao Zhan, Wang Keran captured the mysterious sense of fate behind his back, but yet he also gave a sense of youthful obtrusiveness, gentle and warm. Wang Keran gave Xiao Zhan a list of books and asked him to go back and read, after which Xiao Zhan finished the books in a few days, even wrote some 10 over questions to Wan Fang, the questions were simple but deep, and moved Wang Keran.
On the Cao Yu Commemoration Event, Wang Keran studied Xiao Zhan, and found that his sense of stage was fantastic, and immediately invited him to join “A Dream Like A Dream”.
To Wang Keran, the similarity between Xiao Zhan and Patient No. 5 was that they were both trapped in the uncertainties of fate.
Xiao Zhan’s portrayal of Patient No. 5 gave Wang Keran a pleasant surprise, as to whether he would continue as Patient No. 5 after this year’s shows, they had not spoken about it, but Wang Keran felt that “A Dream Like A Dream” already gave Xiao Zhan some rewards, “I feel that via this play, he can prove that he is a good actor, I feel that ‘A Dream Like A Dream’ gave him a power.”
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan
Entering the Dream Again
Not only Xiao Zhan was a new addition, the Yanghua version of “A Dream Like A Dream” had almost a brand new cast.
Zhang Liang and Yanghua had collaborated for 2 plays, they were old friends; Huang Lu was recommended by Xu Qing, she was also the only actress that was confirmed without meeting Wang Keran.
Director Zhang Rui was in-charged of arranging actors, but because of the pandemic, the Taiwanese actress who was supposed to play the role of the wife could not arrive, another actress had to take on this role. “A Dream Like A Dream” had a total of 31 actors and actresses, many times one would take on multiple roles, any adjustment of actors would have big ramifications.
Zhang Rui created many versions of the casting chart, “This casting chart was an intricate process, move an actor, we might need to reallocate every scene, whether they could make the scene in time, whether they were suitable, reasonable, I’m so frustrated my hair’s dropping.”
Starting from 2013 when “A Dream Like A Dream” premiered in Mainland China, Director Chen Limei and Zhang Rui grew with this play for 9 years. Chen Lipai previously also handled the role of Stage Executive, Zhang Rui was with the crew everyday, there were the two who were most familiar with “A Dream Like A Dream”.
In their memory, the first rehearsal for 2013 lasted 3+ months, after which if there were not much changes with the actors, repeat rehearsals would last 1 week. Some years they had to change an actor, but yet they did not give sufficient rehearsal time and almost drove the actor insane, “Because the crowd actor had to act as multiple roles, the management of every role was complex, he needed to remember his position, his clothes, and he had to depend on himself, there would be no one backstage to inform him, he had to take care of himself.”
“A Dream Like A Dream”
This year, more than half of the cast was changed, theoretically they needed one and a half months, but to gather 31 actors to rehearse at the same time was not easy, the group merely squeezed out 17 days for practice time.
Practice time started officially from 9 Mar, the group settled in Hebei Tangshan, the time was tight, the mission was heavy.
Lai Shengchuan, who was faraway in Taiwan, gave instructions via video conferencing to the actors, to help answer their questions. Wang Keran, Chen Limei and Zhang Rui handled the task of direction.
Wang Keran mainly handled the mini classes to the new actors to the group, every actor had different classes to attend.
Huang Lu was a movie actress, her method for lines was to say to herself, but “A Dream Like A Dream” was to say them to 1200 audiences, Wang Keran gave her a training method, “He made me rehearse only with Xiao Zhan, each of us would stand at the furthest corner, but we must be able to hear each other’s lines, that is we needed to get used to speaking loudly, I felt that this method was actually quite crucial.”
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xiao Zhan and Huang Lu during practice
When he first entered the group, Zhang Liang was tortured by the role of the Baron for 3 days, he totally could not find the sensation, Wang Keran gave him 3 days of progressive classes. The first class was to control the micro expressions and movements, “For example, the first day I reached Tianxian Court, he requested that when I did gestures, my hands could not be higher than my chest, when we normally spoke my palm would face up, but he said that the Baron could not have a moment where his palm was facing up, his palm would forever be facing down.”
The second class was culture class, discussing European culture, politics and artistic background, so as to understand the motives behind Baron’s actions. “Baron would not let Xianglan draw abstract art, made her start from still life, it actually had political connotations. Classical realism represented calm and control, whereas abstraction and symbolism, etc, developed from the lowest of the masses, represented the destruction to order, Baron hoped from the bottom of his heart that Xianglan would live with him, if you liked something he didn’t like, that represented betrayal to Baron, that’s where the cracks in their relationship started.”
Chen Limei and Zhang Rui understood every detail of “A Dream Like A Dream”, when the actors gave any small questions, they would immediately solve them.
For example, how to swiftly get into positions, what to wear after changing out, both directors could immediately give the correct answer, “We found that this time round that one of the new actors was slow in moving, he would say he could not make it, I would say you definitely could make it, you tell me why you couldn’t make it, I would know where you did wrong. He said it was very dark and he couldn’t find his bag, and he needed to take the gun from 2nd floor to the 1st floor, I said there’s another prop gun downstairs, you don’t have to carry it down, he said he didn’t know. We actually spoke to him after observing him for a few days, because we knew that the 2nd floor was very dark, we definitely had to ensure the safety of our actors first.”
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Liang, Huang Lu, Lan Nan, etc.
The time left for the directors was not much, rehearsal, costume, positions, etc, all had to be done simultaneously, the volume of “A Dream Like A Dream” was supposed to be large, there were pressures on progress, the experience for the whole group was basically demonic scheduling.
For example, for 22 Apr Charity Show, the schedule for the actors that day was like this —
10:30 to 11:30 Actors and actresses would set of from their hotels to the theater for make up and costume;
12:30 Lunch;
12:30 Microphone testing;
13:10 Warm up;
13:30 Audience entry;
14:00 Start of Charity Show.
After nearly 8 hours of performance, when the actors were having their media session it was already 30 minutes past midnight.
Everyday they worked for around 12 hours, that would be the normal hours for the group for the month, during practice they did not wear their make up and costume, but they still had to set out by 12:00, practice starts 13:00, 17:00 was dinner, 18:00 was practice again, and they end at 22:00.
“This time round we really went for it, we didn’t work this hard previously, because we changed very few people then, we could probably get to the practice at 2pm,” Chen Limei said.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, actors practicing
The tight rehearsal schedule was a challenge physically to the actors, as they practiced day and night everyday, even Huang Lu felt lost once.
“Because we would be acting the same thing everyday, everyday when you went in, it was day, but when you left, it was night, that period of time I really craved a normal life. There was once we were video conferencing with Teacher Lai, I just said that after this play, I suddenly feel that plays, movies weren’t that important, what’s important was our real life, I especially wanted to experience communicating with people, the feeling of being with family, friends and loved ones.
When you filmed dramas, you would still be outside, after you knock off you could be in touch with a more realistic life. When I was in the same play group as Zhang Ruoyun, we practiced in Beijing, everyday we practiced for around 3 hours, we could still meet friends in the afternoon and night, but this play was concentrated practice, when we left it would already be midnight.”
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing and Huang Lu during practice
Wang Keran could foresee, that actors would experience this type of lethargy, so the arrangement from the very beginning was that after the 17 days of practice, the group would briefly rest for a period of time, until a week before the Wuhan Show, where he would recall them.
This method of working was not easily seen in plays, but to actors, this was a good time to rest and digest.
“The first day we returned, Keran said that was the best time I’ve acted with Xiao Zhan,” Huang Lu said. “Perhaps in-between I had time to digest, get in touch with real life, and had a new understanding.”
In comparison with “A Dream Like A Dream” from 8 years ago, besides the changes in actors, this year’s Yanghua version also shortened the script by around 15 minutes or so, without affecting the foundation of the script.
The adjustment was mainly on the pace of the actors. For example, at the end of the upper half, the housekeeper of the castle would talk about the past of Baron and Gu Xianglan, it used to use a slow and narrative tone, Wang Keran felt that it was not right, “This type of expression seemed to cause Grandpa, who just arrived at Shanghai, to seem unfamiliar with his surroundings, but in fact, Grandpa was very familiar with the castle, he could have returned frequently, like the feeling of a tour guide,” so he adjusted the tone and pace, and made the play richer and more layered.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing, Zhang Liang, Lan Nan
Every improvement in detail, came from written notes from everyday.
When rehearsing, both directors would sit in the middle of the lotus pond, with a small table, and a faint table lamp, the actors would be acting while the directors discover problems and mark it in the script, or write furiously on white paper, after the end of a day’s rehearsal, the paper would be littered with over 200 to 300 notes.
After the rehearsal ends, actors would sit together in the lotus pond and listen to the directors reading the notes one by one, every actor would record down their respective portions.
Xiao Zhan’s phone memo was full of everyday’s notes, for example there were around 10 notes for 19 Apr, Xiao Zhan’s note taking method was simple and concise, note down the scene, or a point, with the remarks of watch out for emotion or pace.
In Zhang Liang’s memory, with regards to his notes, there were up to 20 notes a day, but later on as the problems lessened, the notes also reduced.
Director Chen Limei said, some actors would be confused, why were there always 200 to 300 new notes everyday during the note session, did that mean that they had not improved, but actually everyone was getting better on the basis that they were already getting better.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, the directors at the rehearsal
There was a process in practicing, at the start you might not have memorized all the lines, that note would be about lines, when the lines passed, it could have been about wrong position or movement, at the last part when the acting was getting better, I might notice intricate details such as costume, hairstyle, which you needed to notice carefully. Every stage had its own set of problems discovered, only when you walked from Step 1 to Step 2 that I can see the problems of the current step, otherwise my focus would not be that.”
For example, on the last day before the official show, the note for Xiao Zhan became “the singing before the curtain call, stand slightly westwards” this type of small details.
After experiencing the full dress rehearsal of 18, 19 and 20 Apr, the last day of rehearsal became “note rehearsal”, that is to repeatedly rehearse based on the problems in the notes so as to affirm the scenes that could easily cause issues, including the group scene at Tianxian Court, the scenes between Baron and Young Xianglan, etc. For Xiao Zhan and Huang Lu, the scene they rehearsed was the propless scene around the staircase, which needed to take note of the eye contact as they two of them went up and down the stairs, entering by pushing the door.
After the premiere on 22nd ended, the notes continued, so as to have new improvements for the consecutive shows.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing, Zhang Liang, etc.
Idealism
After the full dress rehearsal ended on 19 Apr, all of the actors gathered backstage, surrounding the directors, quietly standing, it seemed like a special ceremony.
For the new actors who joined this year, this was their first time witnessing this ceremony, but to the actors who had been with “A Dream Like A Dream” before, this had already became a habit.
Director Chen Limei introduced that this ending ceremony was called “Echo”, it was a habit from Lai Shengchuan — a habit that existed since the first premiere in 2013, “When we finish a show, and gain the applause from our audiences, as well as new empathy for our roles, we must return this feelings out, give them to more people, you can imagine that there was a large crowd of people, we would send out these blessings and share them.”
After “A Dream Like A Dream” came to Mainland China, it had always been well acclaimed, it used to show in Beijing and another specific city. Starting the 9 Cities Tour, especially adding the Wuhan Charity Show, was also a form of “Echo”, to share this play with even more audiences.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Wuhan Charity Show inside view
2 years ago, in Chongqing Theatre, Wang Keran came up with the idea to get more people to understand theater, experience theater. He started conceptualizing the 9th Anniversary 9 Cities Tour for “A Dream Like A Dream”.
When they heard of this plan, Chen Limei and Zhang Rui thought it was an impossible wish.
“Because ‘A Dream Like A Dream’ was such a large play, we would actually lose money by doing a tour. Such a big group, there’s about 130 people in the group, so many people’s living expenditures, including putting up the set for each location, it takes a week to put it up, only for a few shows.
Until the start of last year, Keran told us that we would still do it, I said we really had to do it? How could we do this in the pandemic? Last year he said that we could definitely do it the next year. This might had to do with his view of life, he would do what he set out to do, just like then when he did his first play, he sold 4 houses.”
In comparison with previous “A Dream Like A Dream”, the investment of this tour was obviously bigger. More touring cities meant that there was more costs with transfer of set, when they rehearsed in Tangshan it was not as good as Beijing, all the actors had to be in Tangshan with their living expenditures.
On the other hand, the seats in the theaters were fixed, there’s a ceiling to the ticket prices, in the face that it was not profitable, Wang Keran included a not-for-sale charity show, “The cost is too high, after completing the charity show, we basically have no profits for this stop,” Wang Keran said.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing and Xiao Zhan during rehearsal
Early last year during the pandemic period, Wang Keran already thought of doing a charity show in Wuhan.
Then, he spoke on the phone with the person in-charge of the theater, and asked about the situation in Wuhan, “He had always stuck to Wuhan, and told me that if you really cared about us, then you should bring your best show over, I asked which one did you mean? He said ‘A Dream Like A Dream’. I just felt that if ‘A Dream Like A Dream’ did not come, it would not fully express our special respect for Wuhan, and we would do a charity show, free.”
The actors had the same idealism.
Wang Keran said, theater would definitely be tough, the rehearsal time was long, and while they would perform for 3 days in every stop, they had to allocate 1 week for practice, a popular artist’s time would be calculated in days, but they were willing to allocate their schedule for the play.
Sun Zhongyi, who played roles such as the old housekeeper and professor, was one of the core actors for Yanghua Theatre, he was given the rare opportunity for a lead role in a movie, it was very important to him, but the schedule collided with one of the shows for “A Dream Like A Dream”, and for the play, he gave up this rare opportunity.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, actors rehearsing.
Plays do not earn as much as dramas and movies, no matter how popular the celebrity is, the profits from plays will never match up with the value of the drama, an actor’s rehearsal fee for “A Dream Like A Dream” is 100RMB a day, but all of the actors cooperated seriously.
Huang Lu said, sometimes we would joke that we “missed money making opportunities”, but everyone felt that this was especially fine, it was rare that we had a whole year to focus on doing one thing, the period where we practiced in Tangshan was very much like return to school.
“Everyone basically didn’t come here for money,” Huang Lu said, she viewed “A Dream Like A Dream” as a rare opportunity, it was a training for acting, also like a chance for self improvement.
After the “A Dream Like A Dream” Wuhan Charity Show ended, Huang Lu came to the front lobby for a photo.
Every actor gave their best performance.
Newly added actress for Young Gu Xianglan, Ge Xinyi, worked hard to match her senior; seasoned actress Feng Xianzhen controlled her character with grace and power, all 3 Gu Xianglan had an overall soul; Zhang Liang performed a Baron who was different from Jin Shijie’s version, but it was still accurate and layered; Fu Xing as the representative of the original group, became the foundation, their steady and down-to-earth performance assisted every new actor in building up their steady and accurate system of performance.
After performing for 9 years, Xu Qing had already embodied the blood and soul of Gu Xianglan, she also followed the progress of the group, and participated in all of the practices. Wang Keran expressed his thanks to Xu Qing once in Tangshan, “I say I really thank you for appearing in the practice, because your every practice would always accurately complete every detail, even if it was the most basic practice, you always put your heart to it, never held back, completely constructing the character.”
Xu Qing constantly improved her performance, frequently discussing how to handle every word with Wang Keran, for example after Baron had his car accident, Gu Xianglan would run up hurriedly to the police to say “I saw your incompetence” that kind of transition scenes, she would repeatedly try different expressions, after 9 years of “A Dream Like A Dream”, she is still pondering over it repeatedly, searching for the best method to handle every detail.
“A Dream Like A Dream”, Xu Qing and Zhang Liang during rehearsal.
During the rehearsal in Wuhan, Yuli Studio also witnessed how Xu Qing gave all of her emotions in every rehearsal, especially the important scene where Gu Xianglan took off her Cheongsam and walked through the lotus pond in sleeping garments, everytime Xu Qing finished that performance, her eyes would be filled with tears.
Xu Qing told Wang Keran one sentence later, and hoped that he would share that with the new actors, “Just tell them this point, 1 minute onstage, 9 years of effort offstage.”
Theater people always had this persistence in idealism and passion for the stage, with so much interest in “A Dream Like A Dream” this time round, Wang Keran hoped that with this play, more audiences would understand plays and love plays.
He especially prepared a live broadcast after the charity show ended, so that people beyond that 1200 audiences could see “A Dream Like A Dream”, hear the words from the actors’ hearts, he hoped that the other actors besides Xu Qing and Xiao Zhan would also be noticed.
“I know that the rules of news broadcast, if it wasn’t live broadcast, you would definitely cut away the people who weren’t important, right, but I hoped that everybody could see everyone’s effort. Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, they were also very happy to have this method, I think that this is also a faith in collaboration equality built upon plays for them.”
“A Dream Like A Dream” would continue to tour 9 cities, Wang Keran hoped that through this play, it would encourage more youths to enter theaters, “I had this thought a long time ago, I just needed to find the right opportunity. For all of our lives we had hoped that plays would have more influence, could have more people entering theaters, if this worked out, then actors and actresses such as Xu Qing, Xiao Zhan, Zhang Liang etc, would have great contribution.”
107 notes
·
View notes
Text
Allocating Your Aesthetic Budget: Sailor Moon Edition
Sailor Moon is a show that undoubtedly built a powerhouse of a visual brand. Should I even bother posting a screenshot of the sailor scouts, given that I am 100% confident anyone reading this can recall them instantly? I guess it won’t hurt:
Anime is often really good at creating iconic designs like this, through repetition of the visuals. It is awkward in live action shows if characters just wear the same outfit every scene (what, they only own one outfit? Are they homeless/work in the tech industry?), but animation gives us enough aesthetic “distance”, an awareness that this isn’t accurate to real life, that you can buy into the conceit. By wearing the same outfit every time, it just becomes the character. Not to mention a studio can really save quite a few bucks by streamlining production with neat tricks like having only one character design to animate - when you are on a shoe-string budget, like pretty much every anime in the 90’s was, every cut corner counts.
What is interesting about Sailor Moon is that most of the time it doesn’t really use this conceit at all.
-----------
Episode 15 of Sailor Moon’s first season has, in its opening act, this shot of all of the Senshi (at the time) talking to the plot-of-the-day character, who clearly trains rock Pokemon in 16-bit caves in his off hours:
If you knew nothing about these three characters, you could probably infer about 80% of their personality just from their outfits. Usagi (the blond one in the middle, if that's necessary) is wearing:
Light pastel colours, with pink on top of that: girly, feminine, bubbly and breezy
Short-but-not-too-short of a skirt, and red heels: cares about fashion, wants to project an image of being a woman with a romantic hint to it
Long-twin tails w/ buns: Contrasting the shoes, she is still immature and childish. It also means she is the protagonist of an anime
Rei (far right) rocks a very different look:
T-shirt and jean shorts, shoes over heels: sensible, practical, a bit sporty
Very short shorts, long black hair: Confident, a bit aggressive, and suggestive of a more overt sexuality
Ami (far left) settles into a more restrained vibe with:
Full, long, but sleeveless dress, bob-cut hair: Chaste, more conservative, but not to the point of prudishness; particularly with the length (and the hand posture, shielding her body) probably a bit shy
Monochrome blue colour in outfit & hair: reserved, serene, possessing a calm demeanor
I know I have seen the show already, but really none of these details are a stretch - this is just the language of fashion. And all of these outfits are outfits that the characters have never (or rarely) worn before up until this point. The cast of Sailor Moon, far from that animation conceit of “standard outfits”, change clothes all…
the….
time.
I just randomly clicked on episodes to find these, it requires no hunting
And while it isn’t always as spot on as the top picture, they all in some way embody the language of visual design to speak to the personality of the characters. If you want to see more, check out one of the multiple tumblrs dedicated to the everyday clothing the Sailor Senshi wear, because of course those exist.
If this was a 2010’s Kyoto Animation show, pointing this out would be the end of it - every one of their shows has this level of impeccable detail. Sailor Moon is notable in that it is not at all that kind of show; the animation and designs in Sailor Moon take perpetual shortcuts to get the job done. I don’t think the transformation sequences need to be belabored - the way they permitted the team to recycle identical animation sequences, multiple times per episode, was surely a godsend to the production schedule. Yet not all of the budget limitations are so prettily masked:
I’m sure they finished the background art in the...VHS release?
The show is filled with dirty animation, unfinished backgrounds, backgrounds that are a simple color gradient for no clear reason, and so on. It is clear that the Sailor Moon team did not have the resources for every detail - which is why the decision of what details they did choose to prioritize is so interesting.
----------
What is the point of Sailor Moon? I do believe that shows have “points”; and by that I don’t mean a message or theme but a core appeal to an audience, something specific that they will get out of the show. Almost every show appeals along multiple axes, and Sailor Moon is no exception, but I want to focus on one: aesthetic identification.
If you learn someone is a Sailor Moon fan, there is the obvious follow-up question you have to ask, namely “which Sailor Senshi are you?” It’s the which-Harry-Potter-house-are-you question of anime, a horoscope where you can choose your sign (in this case literally). The premise of this concept is not hard for media to execute on - it is just personality traits and aesthetics grouped together under a label, a basic building block of media and clickbait internet quizzes. Harry Potter, ironically, raised up its memetic question almost by accident, as its focus is so squarely on House Gryffindor that the others are almost forgotten; it was just so mind-bogglingly popular that it didn’t matter.
Sailor Moon, however, takes this concept and allocates so much of its aesthetic budget into making it a centerpiece of the show. Sailor Moon herself is a klutzy, lazy romantic, Sailor Mercury is a shy, earnest bookworm, and so on, with none of them ever really becoming very complex characters. However, the show devotes itself to making you *feel* these archetypes as strongly and intricately as possible. All of those outfit changes are chosen because not only do real girls care about their outfits and can therefore identify more strongly with characters who do the same, but so they can constantly emulate their archetype in diverse, different ways. The show doesn't have the budget for intense action scenes, so after Sailor Moon engages in her hyper-serious transformation sequences, she proceeds to, nearly every time, bumble through the combat scenes like this:
Oh sure, the scenes are done this way because it is funny (and good comedy can be done on any budget - these shots are frequently still frames with motion lines!), but it is also done this way because Sailor Moon is a total screw-up, and if you identify with that it is validating to see someone “just like you” able to pull off wins despite it all. The transformation sequences are not only beautiful animation that showcases aspirational power, but are also crafted to highlight the personalities of the Senshi in question - unless you think aggressive, combative Rei got fire powers by coincidence. Half of the run-time of every episode is spent, not on the plot du-jour, but on light-hearted personal squabbles between the cast because those scenes are not just funny, but also allow for far more moments of character expression.
All of that work pays off in building with the audience, not a connection with a character who reflects their identity in total, but a connection that reflects one aspect of their identity in an extremely deep (dare I say multifaceted?) way. I think if you were to describe Sailor Moon as a “shallow” show, you would actually be right to say so, in a sense. These characters will never have the true depth of personality, themes and so on of a more ‘adult’ show. But those adult shows have to spend their effort somewhere - for all that the themes of say Evangelion or Paranoia Agent are pristinely detailed and impactful, you aren’t ever going to be memorizing the moves of their transformation sequences. The way Sailor Moon committed so strongly to fleshing out the archetypes the Senshi stood for is, I think, one of the keys to how this cast of five became so iconic.
Not even their school uniforms match! They had to spend time in-universe *justifying* this!
----------
A Final Note:
At least, everything I’ve said here applies to Sailor Moon at its peaks. The show, however, is not one without its stumbles, even in Season 1. This section doesn’t flow into the core essay too well, but I wanted to note it because if you were to watch Sailor Moon today, you might struggle to feel the dynamic outlined above. The biggest culprit here is the length - Season 1 is 46 episodes long, and sections of it most certainly drag. They also take a startlingly long time to introduce the cast - this choice builds tension around their arrival, but it also means the later Senshi get a lot less time to establish themselves. Sailor Venus in particular gets hamstrung by this - she is introduced and then immediately arc plot elements sweep the narrative, and so she is left as a hollow shell for some time. The pacing of the show is undoubtedly flawed.
I think Sailor Moon is a show that you do have to keep its time and place in mind for - namely, middle schoolers and anime nerds watching it on broadcast TV in the 90’s. As an adult you “get” the point of the show pretty quickly, and get satiated on it almost as fast. Watching it all in a few sittings only heightens this problem. For a younger audience, and one that is waiting for a week between episodes with no internet for plot reminders, all that extra time is needed to jog memories and build connections. And younger audiences just have that limitless commitment to the things they love! If you think no one could actually enjoy seeing the same transformation sequence for the 30th time, watch it with someone who would have died for this show when they were 10 and you will be disabused of that notion *very* quickly.
Still, we can’t travel back in time - Sailor Moon is a show of its era. There are “filler-reduced” guides out there, though I caution that the plot of Sailor Moon is absolutely not the point of the show in comparison to the character dynamics, and so sometimes the filler is the best part (Cat-Rhett Butler is the best character in the show YOU KNOW I’M RIGHT). Certainly, however, some method must be used to cut down on its length. If you are going to be a first time viewer in adulthood, that reality should be kept in mind, and if you do accept it for what it is you can really appreciate its core appeal - and don’t forget to finish it off with a 1990′s era internet personality quiz to really wrap it up!
60 notes
·
View notes
Note
Hey I just wanted to ask you something I don't know if its personal so maybe I'll start with me, my psychiatrist told me that I have asperger's syndrome and like my mom keeps asking me like what does that means because I think she sees people with autism as stupid and I'm at the top of my class so she feels like it's a mistake, I personally go mute for months sometimes except for like oral tests, and idk I forget about having a body and so I hit onto walls when I'm focused on something but *
"...*is not so exaggerated like I'm pretty functional I just forget that there are walls and doors and that I can't just transport me to the other room or so,I mean I feel like I'm just trying to find what my "weird or autistic" traits are to justify the diagnosis,I didn't asked my psychiatrist to elaborate on that and so I was wondering, what would you say that your autistic traits are?Also just in case,I know that autistic people can be hella smart and I think that you are really wise I admire you"
Thank you so much, that's very sweet of you to say!
Honestly, I'm sort of in a similar situation- My parents' reaction was to say, "you're too smart to be autistic" or, "Everyone of ~your intelligence~ is a little weird in the head, anyways", and then. Expect me to live up to all the positive stereotypes without ever getting bogged down by the negative realities?
This might not be very helpful at all of me to say, but as an adult who grew up in a rather unpleasant environment, there really isn't much help for a number of things except getting old and independant enough to move out, and then just accepting that their perception of reality isn't open to negotiation. You can try debating it, or meeting them on common ground with scientific basis, but in my case....
....well. There's just some things I now know not to talk about at family gatherings.
I'm sorry, I know that's probably not very helpful or heartening to hear.
As for my personal grab bag of symptoms? I tend to hyperfocus on personal projects. When I'm really invested in an art piece, I often forget to eat or sleep or drink, and the only way I've learned to snap out of that is that if my hands are shaking or I'm falling over a lot, I probably need to eat something and lay down for a while, because otherwise- and yeah, not the healthiest motivator- otherwise I might start fucking up my hard work.
I also get overwhelmed by overlapping noises- if two people are talking at once, even if one is on a radio or TV show, I can't hear either of them and it stresses the shit out of me. White noise, like in malls or assemblies, also tends to burn my energy pretty fast.
Things like leaf blowers, people whistling indoors, and emergency sirens are physically painful. Repetitive noises like a bouncing rubber ball, sniffling, dogs licking things, and low-frequency vibrations from massage chairs, earthquakes, distant bass music, and some fluorescent lighting systems are impossible to ignore, which ranges from irritating to distressing, depending on my headspace du jour.
I hate bland food with a passion. It tends to make me nauseaus. I like lots of spice, lots of sugar, lots of sour and hot and acidic. I love strong flavours, and if I'm cooking for friends and family I often have to remind myself to tone down the seasonings for them.
Some textures make me genuinely ill, too- most types of meat, fat, and other animal bits result in.... Bad times for all. Polyester towels suck ass. Microfiber cloth. Thick cotton knit material. Any fabric covering my forearms. Thin, elastic denim. Vinyl. Polar fleece.
On the flip side, I looooove woven cotton blankets. Cotton sheets, cotton bedding- cold, heavy duvets are good, too. Acrylic, so long as it doesn't get damp. I have.... Perhaps a little bit of a problem here, as I do... Maybe, possibly, get a little impulsive with buying rugs, throws, and blankets when I come across one that feels right.
All my cups and bowls are handmade out of clay. I'm OK with smooth ceramics, but stoneware feels happy in my hands. I think of it as a treat, like packing a bit of chocolate with my lunch, or eating a whole bag of popcorn by myself. Again, I.... May go a little overboard when I come across A nice-feeling piece of dishware.
Basically, from what I understand, a lot of folks on the spectrum are under and over stimulated by various sensory inputs.
Me, I gravitate towards taste, inertia, tactile sensation, temperature, and dark lighting, while I find myself avoiding, limiting, or minimizing sound, light, color, oral texture, and smell.
As for more stereotyped behaviors, I find organizing things such as legal documents, filing cabinets, paint swatches, hardware, coins, stones, or colors to be very soothing and almost meditative. I go through special interests fairly often, and have been 'into' things like animals, insects, natural history, and art since before I could walk. I can't explain why they're such alluring subjects, they just make me happy.
I didn't realize until recently that I do stim, as well- I rock, sway, growl, swish water around, hang upside-down, rotate my thumbs, rub fabric, twirl coins, and flex my hands. I also (rarely) seem compelled to jump up and down in circles very fast when I'm particularly excited, or flap my arms against my sides like a penguin.
When I'm overstimulated, I go.... I'm not sure if you could call it 'nonverbal'. I get the feeling I COULD speak, it's just.... Overwhelmingly difficult. Usually I find a dark space or a corner away from people, put a coat or something over my head, cover my ears, close my eyes... Sometimes deliberate eye contact is hard, or I can't say more than one or two words at a time, or I find myself relying more on a hum or a grunt to communicate that I'm listening.
It... Probably all sounds weird to a neurotypical who may be reading, but I'm perfectly happy with myself as I am. I wouldn't change it if I could, except perhaps to minimize some of the more irritating things.
Mostly, my biggest peeve is being treated like a cool new pet or accessory. "Oh, this is my person with Autism- they're great at cleaning, you should get one!"- yeah, that can fuck right off. I'm right here, I can hear you, I'm a person. A little respect goes a long way.
But, whoops, here I've gone on a ramble- you want the best advice I have, though? Become comfortable with the person you are. Accept and seek out what things bring you happiness. Don't get hung up on the negatives. Love your experience, if you can, and don't worry about validating anything- you are who you are, and the words we use to explain ourselves fall so, so short when faced with the complexity of our individual existence.
The way I see it, the day before your diagnosis is the same as today, you just have one more tool to understand yourself with. The decision of how and if you choose to explain this to those around you is entirely yours to decide!
I know this kind of went off the rail of your question. My answers are a little limited. I hope I could help anyways! Good luck!!
287 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Welcome back to our latest - and last! - Deep Dive into the gameplay of The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack. I’ve really enjoyed sharing the designs and development of this pack with you, and I hope to continue doing these sorts of posts in the future. It’s been a super cool experience, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these!
In today’s post I’ll talk about the feature that is core to everything in this pack, Knitting! Once again, I have to remind you that we’re still in active development on the pack and so some things may change between now and the final game.
Now, let’s talk about some nifty knits!
READ IT I PROMISE YOU GONNA LIKE IT!
In order to start knitting, you’ll need to purchase a Yarn Basket from the Build/Buy catalog. You probably remember voting on these baskets a while back. This was the winning design, presented to you now in all its colorful glory! Don’t like color? That’s okay, because we included a solid black and white variant.
We have one more knitting basket coming too! Remember this one?
The basket acts as the crafting catalyst(neat term, huh?) similar to the Easel or Woodworking Bench in The Sims 4 base game. But unlike those examples, the Yarn Basket is meant to live in a Sim’s inventory so that they can take their knitting anywhere they want to go. Knitting itself is relatively straightforward: click on the Yarn Basket in your inventory, OR, with the basket in your inventory, click on the chair you want to sit in while knitting (perhaps a rocking chair?) and select the Knit interaction.
Your projects are saved to your Sim, so you can pause your progress at any time and resume later, and even juggle multiple projects at once. Starting a project costs a small amount of Simoleons for the cost of yarn, but nothing too outrageous.
(Children can knit too!)
As a Sim levels up their knitting skill they’ll have access to new patterns. They’ll start with knitting socks and beanies, but as they grow more skilled they can tackle more challenging projects like sweaters and toys for kids. But if you only want to specialize in one thing - perhaps knitted mailbox cozies? - that's fine too! Just keep knitting anything and everything, and you’ll be level 10 before you know it.
Speaking of knitting skill, sometimes your skill is reflected in your knitted work, or rather your lack of skill. Knitting projects can fail, and when they fail they can get weird. But it’s all subjective, and maybe you’ll end up accidentally knitting the cutest derpy companion, or the perfectly itchy sweater. No mistakes, only happy accidents!
(Just own it.)
One of the niftiest parts of the knitting skill is unlocking the ability to Teach to Knit, where Sims sit down together and have a knitting pow-wow. We wanted this to feel special, so we got a really sweet animation for it (Thanks Haeju!). Now that you can infect other Sims with the knitting bug, no yarn ball will be safe!
(The knitting needles aren’t finished on the Teach To Knit interaction yet, but trust me it's SUPER CUTE.)
So, what can you do with all these knitting projects? Lots of stuff!
Not only can knitted objects be listed on Plopsy, but you can also Donate them to charity. If you want to surprise a loved one, try Gifting a knitted object too. If you want to destroy all traces of your knitted failures, you can Frog the object and start again! If it's a particularly nice Sweater that you made, consider Adding it to Wardrobe to make it available in Create-A-Sim to all family members.
(Everyone appreciates a nice gift!)
We want Sims to be able to knit something for their whole family. Not only will Sims be able to knit Toddler Onesies, but Baby Onesies as well. So put your little grubworm in a handmade knitted outfit. I’m sure they’d thank us if they could! (And if they didn’t like it I’m sure they’d be polite about it.)
(Here’s a sneak peek at some of the concept art for new clothing for the littlest of Sims!)
It also felt like a good idea to add an Aspiration to tie this passion for knitting all together. So if you want to master the fuzzy art of knitting, consider signing your Sim up for the Lord(or Lady) of the Knits Aspiration. With yarn running through your veins, there will be no knitting mountain too hard to conquer! Master the Aspiration and you’ll be rewarded with the Sacred Knitting Knowledge trait. What does it do? Lots of stuff! What does it unlock? Something special! Am I being vague? I am! Come on guys, I can’t share all the secrets quite yet.
As I’ve mentioned previously, we’re trying to get as much cross-pack functionality for knitting as we can. Cats can play with Yarn Baskets and Yarn Balls, there will be new Club rules for Knitting, new class electives at University, and knitting counts for Emotional Control, just to name a few. I’m hoping Knitting feels nice and snug alongside our other gameplay systems.
Now let's have a chat with our lead Object Modeler, Beth Mohler!
Conor: Can you tell us a little bit about what an Object Modeler does on The Sims 4?
Beth: As an object modeler I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make objects work in The Sims 4. This is actually a very involved process, and somewhat different from the wonderful work our environment team does. We work with designers, concept artists, engineers, animators, vfx artists (basically everyone!) to make sure that Sims can use an object properly in an animation, or that all of our objects will work with each other. Once we understand the design for a new object, we will create a rig, a block model (a very generic version of the object used to help us make more of the same object in the future), and a footprint (tells us where the object can go and how Sims move around it). Once those are tested by animators and other disciplines we can model the final version, create UVs, and add textures. We also hook up and test everything in the game to make sure it all looks good. There is a lot to think about when it comes to making objects because we know players can find so many interesting ways to place and use them in game. That makes it a very fun challenge to make them work with everything else we’ve built before.
Conor: What feature are you most excited to work on in Nifty Knitting Stuff?
Beth: I’d say I am most excited to work on the rocking chairs! I love that we are bringing them to the game and can’t wait to see them in some cozy living rooms or on porches.
Conor: What are some of the challenges you are facing working on this pack?
Beth: One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the knitting itself looks good and is fun to watch! This is a challenge given that it needs to work for everything you can create. Figuring this out takes a lot of iteration between modeling, animation, engineering, design, and art direction so that we come to a conclusion that will work the best given our time and technical constraints.
Another interesting “challenge” is the fact that I crochet as a hobby myself! When you are knowledgeable about something (yarn!) in real life, working on it in the game it can sometimes be hard to separate the things you know and may expect in reality from what is possible or best within a video game. I have to make sure to keep a balance and to conceptualize how we can best convert the knitting experience into The Sims 4. As someone who also generally enjoys interior design and architecture, this is actually one of my favorite challenges and one of the things I love about working on objects in The Sims 4.
Conor: What is your favorite feature you have ever worked on in The Sims 4?
Beth: I think it has to be a tie between the mini fridge or the robotics table in Discover University. That pack was the first time I got to really take an entire feature from start to finish. I’ve been with Maxis for a while, but I’m relatively new to The Sims 4. Both of these objects had some complex features we wanted that required a lot of iteration. I learned a ton about the technical aspects of our game during the process as well. I’ve also worked on a few very cool things between then and now, but those can’t be shared yet ; )
As a fan of The Sims since the very beginning I am so happy to be able to share a little about what I do on a daily basis on The Sims 4 with you! I haven’t been on The Sims 4 for quite as long overall, but some of you may also recognize me from my time on Sims Mobile where I shared some of our workflows on Twitter for making a juice bar. Thanks!
Conor: You shared a screenshot of the In-Progress Rocking Chair in our Rocking Chair Deep Dive. Can you share an updated screenshot now that the Rocking Chair is further along?
Beth: I would love to! I hope everyone has been enjoying seeing the progress on this object so far! Here it is a little further along. This program allows us to set the rules for the object materials, footprint size and rig it should use, as well as all the color variants and swatch colors you see in the catalog.
Thanks Beth! By the way, Beth is on Twitter @SimGuruBeth, so be sure to Follow her!
And thanks to all of you Simmers for following this pack’s development, this has been a really fun project in a very crazy time. A big thank you to my Stuff Pack teammates, and especially SimGuruSarah who edited my inane ramblings and wrangled the miscellaneous bits for these posts.
While this concludes my design Deep Dives, we still have more forum posts with development insights on the way! Keep checking the Community Stuff Pack forum and we’ll have more fun stuff to show off in the weeks to come.
Until next time,
SimGuruConor
Source: The Sims Forum
271 notes
·
View notes
Text
Jade Tang-Taylor: 10 Years of CreativeMornings Auckland
In celebration of our tenth birthday this month, chapter Founder and October speaker, Jade Tang Taylor, shared some of her favourite moments and insights from a decade of CreativeMornings in Tāmaki Makaurau.
What is a highlight or memorable moment from CreativeMornings?
SOOOO many! Let’s go with three…
1. First CreativeMornings/AKL event I ever hosted (Sep 2011) launched at Aotea Centre with original co-host Elise Sterback, and speakers; Zoe Ikin, Sam Trustum and Clem Devine, with rainbow decorated stairs and also Jacinda Ardern in attendance (who happened to be a regular CM/AKL attendee before she became Prime Minister).
2. The last CreativeMornings/AKL event I ever hosted (Nov 2016) at MOTAT, with co-host, colleague, and friend Kaan Hiini and speaker; Joyce Campbell. Admittedly, it was a bittersweet emotional experience as I was pregnant and announced to the community I would be taking a step back to make room for the new “creative project” in my life, and to welcome new energy to lead the CreativeMornings/AKL community into the future!
CreativeMornings community hands up, with Kaan & Jade on stage!
And 3) The Global CreativeMornings Summit (Aug 2016) in Austin Texas, USA, which I managed to sneak in just before I officially stepped back from the hosting responsibilities. It was an incredible experience to connect with a global like-minded community of generous creatives and chapter hosts from all over the world! I also had an opportunity to take Tina Roth Eisenberg (Founder of CreativeMornings) out for lunch in Brooklyn, New York to pick her brains on all things creative, community, business and #mumlife.
youtube
CreativeMornings Summit 2016 video
One of your favourite takeaways from CreativeMornings?
Food & Beverage takeaways: Midnight Baker Toast, Coffee Supreme & Antipodes Water, all who have been avid supporters of CreativeMornings over the years! TY 🙏
Speaker takeaways: This quote “Where does creative freedom come from?” by Kyra Clarke, beautifully illustrated by recent speaker Kate Hursthouse, which still resonates with me today and sits on a shelf in my home office as a daily reminder.
As part of a postcard/poster series created for CreativeMornings 4th birthday
One of your own highlights in the past 10 years?
Again, SOOOOO many creative highlights… Many of which I’ll share in my upcoming talk.
That said, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have been immersed in the creative community, especially through the lens of CreativeMornings. However, my biggest and most life-changing “creative project” to date would be my feisty, independent lil human who is now four years old. And no doubt, that “project” will keep changing and challenging me creatively in a multitude of ways ;)
Lil Phoenix attending her first CreativeMornings talk
What has changed in Auckland’s (or NZ’s) creative sector in the past 10 (or thereabout) years?
Hmmm such an interesting question… Admittedly, I feel like I’ve unintentionally moved away from the creative, design and arts sector a little and more recently leaned into a more strategic design practice in the social, public and community sector.
Upon reflection, from my previous roles working at a large Philanthropic organisation… There's a sense that less funding is available for the creative/arts sector, and more funding for the social sector. And of course more recently, these financial challenges are exacerbated in times of COVID-19 pandemic in the arts, theatre, events production and wider creative industry.
However, I feel that there’s a real need to bring those two sectors closer together in the future. If we’re ever to solve some of these complex “wicked” problems, we’re going to need new creative ways of working, of doing, and of being.
One thing you’d like to see in the next 10 years?
(Refer to Question 4, and please come join us at the next CreativeMornings/AKL talk!)
You can join Jade at CreativeMornings Auckland ONLINE, Friday 29 October from 7.50pm. Registration is open here: https://creativemornings.com/talks/jade-tang-taylor
💖
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
How Tina Turner and Frank Zappa Whipped Up Some Dirty Love
https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Tina Turner joins the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2021 in Cleveland this October, along with Jay-Z, Gil Scott-Heron, Todd Rundgren, Carole King, Foo Fighters, and The Go-Gos. Tina is already an honoree as a member of Ike and Tina Turner, and she is also once again distinguishing herself from the group. Even before she went solo, Turner had star billing, such as her turn as the Acid Queen in Ken Russell’s film adaptation of The Who’s Tommy. But Tina had to skip the credits for her work with Frank Zappa, who was posthumously inducted into the Rock Hall in 1995.
Turner recently made a gracious exit from the stage in HBO’s feature documentary Tina. She is also highlighted in Apple TV+’s upcoming 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything. This was the year Ike and Tina’s cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” hit No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot 100, becoming their biggest hit. Tina had already established herself as the draw of the musical couple when they signed to Phil Spector’s Philles label. The legendary producer paid extra to highlight Tina’s dynamic range on the single “River Deep – Mountain High,” which was released in May 1966.
Both documentaries skip one of Tina’s artistic highlights.
Ike and Tina Turner opened the Bolic Sound studios complex at 1310 N La Brea Avenue in Inglewood, California, in 1970. It boasted incomparable state-of-the-art audio equipment for the time. “Bolic was one of the greatest studios I’ve ever seen,” Little Richard wrote in his introduction to Ike Turner’s 1999 autobiography Takin’ Back My Name. “He had everything in this studio. He had his own booking agency, and he was showing people how to produce.” Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Duane Allman recorded at Bolic Sound.
Frank Zappa recorded and produced two of his most recognizable albums at the studio: his ironically titled 17th album Over-Nite Sensation, which came out in 1973, and Apostrophe from 1974. Zappa was at the forefront of the avant-garde musical movement at the time. During his sessions, Ike and Tina Turner and the Ikettes were recording in the same studio complex. Zappa took advantage of the proximity to expand on his sonic landscape.
“I wanted to put some back-up singers on the thing, and the road manager who was with us at the time checked into it and said, ‘well, why don’t you just use the Ikettes?’ I said, ‘I can get the Ikettes?’ and he said ‘Sure,’” Zappa is quoted as saying in Barry Miles’ 1993 book, Zappa: A Biography.
The vocal trio The Ikettes were already iconic. They were one of the first recognized “Girl Groups” in rock and roll history. The ensemble was formed as the backing group of Art Lassiter and were originally called The Artettes. Ike saw the success Ray Charles had with his backing vocal trio The Raelettes. The original Ikettes included Robbie Montgomery, Venetta Fields and Jessie Smith. They became the Ikettes after Ike and Tina Turner’s first single “Fool In Love” became a hit in 1960, and the Ike and Tina Turner Revue wanted to play it live. Onstage, The Ikettes pushed soul music dance choreography into the stratosphere.
For Over-Nite Sensation, Tina Turner, Linda Sims, and Debbie Wilson appear on the songs “I’m The Slime,” “Dirty Love,” “Zomby Woof,” “Dinah-Moe Humm,” and “Montana.” You can hear them on Apostrophe on the songs “Cosmik Debris” and “Uncle Remus.”
Ike agreed to rent out his signature sounding vocal stylists while still stamping the project with his authority. “But you know what the gimmick was? We had to agree, Ike Turner insisted, that we pay these girls no more than $25 per song, because that’s what he paid them,” Frank says in Miles’ book. “And no matter how many hours it took, I could not pay them any more than $25 per song per girl, including Tina.”
That turns out to be a bit of an exaggeration. The singers were actually paid $25 per hour, according to the session’s invoice, which shows they got $187.50 each for 7 1/2 hours of service. But the singers worked for that money. The song “Montana” not only has constantly evolving time signatures, but also passages which change of speeds. The middle section is especially challenging. Besides the time changes, the harmonic progressions and the way they play against the bass counterpoint is unusual for rock, and challenging to perform.
“It was so difficult, that one part in the middle of the song ‘Montana,’ that the three girls rehearsed it for a couple of days,” Zappa recounted. “Just that one section. You know the part that goes ‘I’m pluckin’ the ol’ dennil floss’? Right in the middle there. I can’t remember her name, but one of the harmony singers, she got it first. She came out and sang her part and the other girls had to follow her track. Tina was so pleased that she was able to sing this thing that she went into the next studio where Ike was working and dragged him into the studio to hear the result of her labor. He listened to the tape and he goes, ‘What is this shit?’ and walked out.”
After hearing some of the recordings, Ike Turner insisted the Ikettes not be credited on the released albums. According to CD reissues, it appears he did not approve of the content. “Dirty Love” and “Dinah-Moe Humm” were among the most overtly sexual songs in Zappa’s catalog. These two songs may be the reason Ike wouldn’t sign off on letting his singing stable put their name on the record sleeves.
Of the other songs, “Zomby Woof” takes a bite out of lycanthropic fare, while “Cosmic Debris” turns the tables on a spiritual guru. “I’m The Slime” is about the brainwashing of everyday television. “Uncle Remus,” which takes its name from Joel Chandler Harris’ Br’er Rabbit stories, is an indictment on the then-current state of the civil rights movement compared with the time of Zappa’s 1966 song “Trouble Every Day.” That song looked at the Watts riots when Black folks were burning down buildings as well as the old status quo. In “Uncle Remus,” the most damage being done is “knocking the little jockeys off the rich people’s lawns.”
Ikettes Linda Sims and Debbie Wilson also recorded “Cheepnis,” Zappa’s classic ode to B-movies at Bolic Sound studio on December 12, 1973. This song was the “elsewhere” on the otherwise live album Roxy & Elsewhere (1974). The rest of the album was recorded at The Roxy Theatre.
cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });
You can see that exceedingly fun footage here at The World of Ike & Tina YouTube Channel:
Both the Tina documentary and 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything include segments covering the wounds Turner suffered as an artist, married to her boss, at the dawn of any kind of gender equality. The oppression she suffered under Ike’s tyrannical reign did not escape Zappa’s eye.
“I don’t know how she managed to stick with that guy for so long,” Zappa said in the Miles book. “He treated her terribly and she’s a really nice lady. We were recording down there on a Sunday. She wasn’t involved with the session, but she came in on Sunday with a whole pot of stew that she brought for everyone working in the studio. Like out of nowhere, here’s Tina Turner coming in with a rag on her head bringing a pot of stew. It was really nice.”
1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything premieres May 21 on Apple TV+.
The post How Tina Turner and Frank Zappa Whipped Up Some Dirty Love appeared first on Den of Geek.
from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3uZtrWs
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting: Knitting Deep Dive
SimGuruConnor has released a forum post providing details on The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting!
Welcome back to our latest – and last! – Deep Dive into the gameplay of The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack. I’ve really enjoyed sharing the designs and development of this pack with you, and I hope to continue doing these sorts of posts in the future. It’s been a super cool experience, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these!
In today’s post I’ll talk about the feature that is core to everything in this pack, Knitting! Once again, I have to remind you that we’re still in active development on the pack and so some things may change between now and the final game.
Now, let’s talk about some nifty knits!
In order to start knitting, you’ll need to purchase a Yarn Basket from the Build/Buy catalog. You probably remember voting on these baskets a while back. This was the winning design, presented to you now in all its colorful glory! Don’t like color? That’s okay, because we included a solid black and white variant.
We have one more knitting basket coming too! Remember this one?
The basket acts as the crafting catalyst(neat term, huh?) similar to the Easel or Woodworking Bench in The Sims 4 base game. But unlike those examples, the Yarn Basket is meant to live in a Sim’s inventory so that they can take their knitting anywhere they want to go. Knitting itself is relatively straightforward: click on the Yarn Basket in your inventory, OR, with the basket in your inventory, click on the chair you want to sit in while knitting (perhaps a rocking chair?) and select the Knit interaction.
Your projects are saved to your Sim, so you can pause your progress at any time and resume later, and even juggle multiple projects at once. Starting a project costs a small amount of Simoleons for the cost of yarn, but nothing too outrageous.
(Children can knit too!)
As a Sim levels up their knitting skill they’ll have access to new patterns. They’ll start with knitting socks and beanies, but as they grow more skilled they can tackle more challenging projects like sweaters and toys for kids. But if you only want to specialize in one thing – perhaps knitted mailbox cozies? – that’s fine too! Just keep knitting anything and everything, and you’ll be level 10 before you know it.
Speaking of knitting skill, sometimes your skill is reflected in your knitted work, or rather your lack of skill. Knitting projects can fail, and when they fail they can get weird. But it’s all subjective, and maybe you’ll end up accidentally knitting the cutest derpy companion, or the perfectly itchy sweater. No mistakes, only happy accidents!
(Just own it.)
One of the niftiest parts of the knitting skill is unlocking the ability to Teach to Knit, where Sims sit down together and have a knitting pow-wow. We wanted this to feel special, so we got a really sweet animation for it (Thanks Haeju!). Now that you can infect other Sims with the knitting bug, no yarn ball will be safe!
(The knitting needles aren’t finished on the Teach To Knit interaction yet, but trust me it’s SUPER CUTE.)
So, what can you do with all these knitting projects? Lots of stuff!
Not only can knitted objects be listed on Plopsy, but you can also Donate them to charity. If you want to surprise a loved one, try Gifting a knitted object too. If you want to destroy all traces of your knitted failures, you can Frog the object and start again! If it’s a particularly nice Sweater that you made, consider Adding it to Wardrobe to make it available in Create-A-Sim to all family members.
(Everyone appreciates a nice gift!)
We want Sims to be able to knit something for their whole family. Not only will Sims be able to knit Toddler Onesies, but Baby Onesies as well. So put your little grubworm in a handmade knitted outfit. I’m sure they’d thank us if they could! (And if they didn’t like it I’m sure they’d be polite about it.)
(Here’s a sneak peek at some of the concept art for new clothing for the littlest of Sims!)
It also felt like a good idea to add an Aspiration to tie this passion for knitting all together. So if you want to master the fuzzy art of knitting, consider signing your Sim up for the Lord(or Lady) of the Knits Aspiration. With yarn running through your veins, there will be no knitting mountain too hard to conquer! Master the Aspiration and you’ll be rewarded with the Sacred Knitting Knowledge trait. What does it do? Lots of stuff! What does it unlock? Something special! Am I being vague? I am! Come on guys, I can’t share all the secrets quite yet.
As I’ve mentioned previously, we’re trying to get as much cross-pack functionality for knitting as we can. Cats can play with Yarn Baskets and Yarn Balls, there will be new Club rules for Knitting, new class electives at University, and knitting counts for Emotional Control, just to name a few. I’m hoping Knitting feels nice and snug alongside our other gameplay systems.
Now let’s have a chat with our lead Object Modeler, Beth Mohler!
Conor: Can you tell us a little bit about what an Object Modeler does on The Sims 4?
Beth: As an object modeler I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make objects work in The Sims 4. This is actually a very involved process, and somewhat different from the wonderful work our environment team does. We work with designers, concept artists, engineers, animators, vfx artists (basically everyone!) to make sure that Sims can use an object properly in an animation, or that all of our objects will work with each other. Once we understand the design for a new object, we will create a rig, a block model (a very generic version of the object used to help us make more of the same object in the future), and a footprint (tells us where the object can go and how Sims move around it). Once those are tested by animators and other disciplines we can model the final version, create UVs, and add textures. We also hook up and test everything in the game to make sure it all looks good. There is a lot to think about when it comes to making objects because we know players can find so many interesting ways to place and use them in game. That makes it a very fun challenge to make them work with everything else we’ve built before.
Conor: What feature are you most excited to work on in Nifty Knitting Stuff?
Beth: I’d say I am most excited to work on the rocking chairs! I love that we are bringing them to the game and can’t wait to see them in some cozy living rooms or on porches.
Conor: What are some of the challenges you are facing working on this pack?
Beth: One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the knitting itself looks good and is fun to watch! This is a challenge given that it needs to work for everything you can create. Figuring this out takes a lot of iteration between modeling, animation, engineering, design, and art direction so that we come to a conclusion that will work the best given our time and technical constraints.
Another interesting “challenge” is the fact that I crochet as a hobby myself! When you are knowledgeable about something (yarn!) in real life, working on it in the game it can sometimes be hard to separate the things you know and may expect in reality from what is possible or best within a video game. I have to make sure to keep a balance and to conceptualize how we can best convert the knitting experience into The Sims 4. As someone who also generally enjoys interior design and architecture, this is actually one of my favorite challenges and one of the things I love about working on objects in The Sims 4.
Conor: What is your favorite feature you have ever worked on in The Sims 4?
Beth: I think it has to be a tie between the mini fridge or the robotics table in Discover University. That pack was the first time I got to really take an entire feature from start to finish. I’ve been with Maxis for a while, but I’m relatively new to The Sims 4. Both of these objects had some complex features we wanted that required a lot of iteration. I learned a ton about the technical aspects of our game during the process as well. I’ve also worked on a few very cool things between then and now, but those can’t be shared yet ; )
As a fan of The Sims since the very beginning I am so happy to be able to share a little about what I do on a daily basis on The Sims 4 with you! I haven’t been on The Sims 4 for quite as long overall, but some of you may also recognize me from my time on Sims Mobile where I shared some of our workflows on Twitter for making a juice bar. Thanks!
Conor: You shared a screenshot of the In-Progress Rocking Chair in our Rocking Chair Deep Dive. Can you share an updated screenshot now that the Rocking Chair is further along?
Beth: I would love to! I hope everyone has been enjoying seeing the progress on this object so far! Here it is a little further along. This program allows us to set the rules for the object materials, footprint size and rig it should use, as well as all the color variants and swatch colors you see in the catalog.
Thanks Beth! By the way, Beth is on Twitter @SimGuruBeth, so be sure to Follow her!
And thanks to all of you Simmers for following this pack’s development, this has been a really fun project in a very crazy time. A big thank you to my Stuff Pack teammates, and especially SimGuruSarah who edited my inane ramblings and wrangled the miscellaneous bits for these posts.
While this concludes my design Deep Dives, we still have more forum posts with development insights on the way! Keep checking the Community Stuff Pack forum and we’ll have more fun stuff to show off in the weeks to come.
Until next time,
SimGuruConor
37 notes
·
View notes
Note
4-73
Here it goes
4. What do you think about most?
You ;) lmao, no uhhhhh... food?
5: What does your latest text message from someone else say?
from my bf: Hi bb
6: Do you sleep with or without clothes on?
with
7: What’s your strangest talent?
that I have none
8: Girls… (finish the sentence); Boys… (finish the sentence)
Girls like spaghetti, Boys like spaghetti-os (WHY WAS THIS THE FIRST THING THAT CAME UP IN MY HEAD)
9: Ever had a poem or song written about you?
i have unfortunately, it’s like a tradition here that for secret Santa, you write a matching poem for the person you picked, so i’ve had a few poems written for me... all horrible.
10: When is the last time you played the air guitar?
I prefer drums lol, today (In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins)
11. Do you have any strange phobias?
Needles for sure, but if we really are talking strange, than it’s not of heights, but dropping something from high up. Or falling. actually, not even from high up, even like a bridge, or a manhole. i’m so fucking scared of dropping anything anywhere and not being able to get it back.
12: Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?
lmao i had this barbie bracelet that looked like a septum ring and i loved to pretend i had one. so technically up my nose, but almost.
13: What’s your religion?
Atheist <3
14. If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?
walking back home
15: Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?
BEHIND
16: Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?
5SOS???
17. What’s the most recent lie you told?
that i liked the result of my group project
18: Do you believe in karma?
yeah
19: What does your URL mean?
pastels that are ugly
20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?
weakness: anxiety, strength: creativity
21: Who is your celebrity crush?
Tom Holland
22: Have you ever gone skinny dipping?
yup, it was kinda boring alone lol
23: How do you vent your anger?
unhealthily (is that even a word?)
24: Do you have a collection of anything?
books, pins/badges, and i used to collect angel (figurines) when i was younger)
25: Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?
on the phone
26: Are you happy with the person you’ve become?
No
27: What’s a sound you hate; sound you love?
hate: i answered this before and said children crying, but they don’t even have to be crying.
love: rain <3
28: What’s your biggest “what if”?
What if I didn’t fail my classes two years ago (cause that's when my life went to complete shit)
29: Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?
Yes. Yes. (or at least, I’d like them to be real)
30: Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.
right: tablet, left: pack of Arizona ice tea
31: Smell the air. What do you smell?
nothing???
32: What’s the worst place you have ever been to?
uhhh... i can’t remember
33: Choose: East Coast or West Coast?
neither
34: Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?
Harry Styles
35: To you, what is the meaning of life?
42
36: Define Art.
something that should have been fun in the process of making, but eventually just makes you want to gauge out your eyeballs and then cry :)
37: Do you believe in luck?
sure??
38: What’s the weather like right now?
windy and it just stopped raining <3
39: What time is it?
11:16pm
40: Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?
Nope, and because of the idea of crashing, i probably never will
41: What was the last book you read?
The Executioner, by Chris Carter
42: Do you like the smell of gasoline?
Absolutely not, trauma triggers <3
43: Do you have any nicknames?
Zuzia is already a nickname (well, diminutive, same thing)
44: What was the last film you saw?
I watched a part of Dolittle???
45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?
I broke my wrist
46: Have you ever caught a butterfly?
no, never even tried
47: Do you have any obsessions right now?
yeah
48: What’s your sexual orientation?
don’t know, don’t really care
49: Ever had a rumour spread about you?
during a student exchange with a polish school, everyone thought i was dating of the dudes from that school (ngl i did have a crush on him and we did hold hands on a trip to Amsterdam AND he let me borrow his raincoat when we arrived back at school and i still had to cycle home while he was going back with car but FAKE NEWS)
50: Do you believe in magic?
same with ghosts and aliens, i hope it’s real
51: Do you tend to hold grudges against people who have done you wrong?
nah
52: What is your astrological sign?
Sagittarius
53: Do you save money or spend it?
save
54: What’s the last thing you purchased?
a few bday presents for my mom :)
55: Love or lust?
love
56: In a relationship?
YUP <3
57: how many relationships have you had?
2 (and that half one with a polish guy since it was rumoured but still cute lol)
58: Can you touch your nose with your tongue?
nope
59: Where were you yesterday?
in bed
60: Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you?
yes. boxes
61: Are you wearing socks right now?
sure am
62: What’s your favourite animal?
zebra??
63: What is your secret weapon to get someone to like you?
humor?? idk people dont like me
64: Where is your best friend?
at home
65: Give me your top 5 favourite blogs on Tumblr.
@spiderrrling @captainpeggy40 @duskholland @justasmisunderstoodasloki @appreci
66: What is your heritage?
Polish (and Dutch?? eh kinda?)
67: What were you doing last night at 12AM?
texting my boyfriend uwu
68: What do you think is Satan’s last name?
Johnson
69: Be honest. Ever gotten yourself off?
yeah
70: Are you the kind of friend you would want to have as a friend?
sure
71: You are walking down the street on your way to work. There is a dog drowning in the canal on the side of the street. Your boss has told you if you are late one more time you get fired. What do you do?
cry and try to get him out of the canal, fall in myself by doing so probably
72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?
a) i would tell my family and closest friends
b&c) no idea
73: You can only have one of these things; trust or love.
trust
happy now?
10 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Hey guys, Chris here again!
You probably know by now that I produce music on this label under the name “Dated”, but what you may not know is that I’ve also produced the upcoming Cyberghost album as my first real Dark Synthwave album. This is a pretty sharp left-turn from my usual work in lofi hip hop, so I wanted to go into a bit of detail about why I started making this sort of music, how I learned to do it, what I used to make it, and what inspired this project.
This story begins where all stories about getting into something new in 2020 will - quarantine. While I run this label like it’s a day job, I actually have a “real” day job as an administration manager for an art gallery. March came along, and so did the COVID situation, and I found myself laid-off for about 4.5 months straight due to a lockdown. The first few months were mostly spent playing videogames and watching movies, but after a while I started to get the itch to use the time a bit more productively. Around that same time, I happened to come across a track on Youtube which I hadn’t hear in a few years - Carpenter Brut’s “Escape from Midwich Valley”. While I had heard his music before, and enjoyed it quite a bit, I never really looked into more tracks by Mr. Brut, and had mostly just listened to the odd Perturbator album as my experience with dark synthwave. This time, however, it just grabbed me, and I spent days just listening to dark synthwave music and wondering how they all made it. As someone who has always worked with samples and knows absolutely nothing about music theory or sound design, I have always been mystified as to how people actually make “real” music. For whatever reason, the obsessive part of my personality kicked in right then and there, and I found myself looking for synths to download and searching “how to stay in key” on Youtube.
What followed was a solid month of spending about 16 hours a day doing absolutely nothing but looking things up, working on my own tracks, and watching 80’s horror films on Shudder every time I had to stop working to eat something. My girlfriend was coincidentally out of town for the month, so I was able to just go in hard on this whole dark synthwave thing. The first thing I found that really made it all possible was the “stamp” feature in FL Studio’s piano roll. As if magically, I could just pick a key, see what notes were within it, and then just always be on-key if I stuck to those. It took some time to figure out my timing and how to write something that didn’t sound terrible, but at least knowing I wasn’t falling out of key really gave me the confidence to play around with notes until I felt my riffs were getting catchier. The other biggest game-changer was buying some paid synths. Free synths are great and all, but their main issue is that they are generally built to make a pretty wide-range of sounds, and I found myself getting buried in massive preset libraries rather than being able to find those authentic 80’s sounds I wanted. I picked up U-He’s Repro-5 (which comes bundled with the Repro-1), as well as the TAL-U-NO-LX, which despite only being $50 USD is hands-down my most used synth. The TAL is lightweight, has a nice simple arpeggiator, and I honestly don’t think is capable of making a bad, un-80’s sound. The Repro was also great, and allows for much more full, complex sounds which still ooze 80’s vibes, but since it is a much more resource-intensive synth, I found myself using it less often due to the need to bounce sequences out to WAV frequently to keep my DAW from lagging after a few layers. That said, you can hear all 3 synths on pretty much every Cyberghost track, as well as a few later additions such as Serum and Mono/Poly.
That bit of research had the technical bits sorted out, but an album doesn’t write itself. The actual process for creating the tracks was loosely built around a concept - that of a mysterious, isolated town in the woods, being investigated by someone who gets pulled deep into darker events than they had anticipated. If that sounds a bit vague, well, that is intentional. I wanted enough of a concept to help me decide which tracks to make and how to arrange them, as well as what to title them and what album art to produce, but didn’t want some beat-for-beat script I had to illustrate through music. Also helping things along were the avalanche of 80’s horror films I consumed during the time I wrote the album (and consistently afterwards). Some standouts were Manic Cop, The Mouth of Madness, Sleepaway Camp, and Pieces.
It took about a month to get the first 6 of 8 tracks finished, and then I finished the remaining 2 tracks (which were Midnight Detectives and The Ritual) over the course of another month or two once I had returned to work. I drew a few designs for album art and picked one, which I posted in the last blog post, but later scrapped for what would become the current album art (the inks for which can be seen above). I’ve been a visual artist for a long time, so that was probably the most approachable part of this whole project.
And that’s the story of how a guy who can;t play any instruments or write music, and had never touched a synth before wrote a synthwave album in a few months. Whether it turned out well or not will be up to you folks once you can hear the full thing on the 11th, but I’d like to think it turned out pretty decent. If you’ve ever thought about learning to create something new, but thought it was out of reach, I’d urge you to push that negative voice down and just jump into learning about it without thinking. You’d be surprised how things can sort of fall into place, and the process of learning can carry you to a point where you can actually start doing without thinking so much about it.
The full album comes out this coming Monday, January 11 2021. If you want a sneak peek at the album, you can check it out here: https://youtu.be/HkBylYMa6wQ
The album will be available on a limited edition Type II blood-red cassette which comes with a special box and a signed 11x17 poster (limited to 100 copies). There will also be the usual unlimited cassette release, as well as our first CD release. I’ll probably make another post once the album is out to cover some of the physical options, as they just turned out beautiful.
#darksynth#synthwave#horrosynth#horror#retro#retrowave#outrun#metal#lovecraft#80s#vibes#cassette#cd#carpenter brut#perturbator#gost#lazerhawk#the midnight#cyberghost#illadvisedrecords#newretrowave#cyberpunk
3 notes
·
View notes
Photo
My November playlist is complete from Aretha Franklin to Blood Incatation, and I guarantee there’s at least something in here you’ll love. Thanks for listening!
If you’d like to get these playlists emailed to you instead of having them appear randomly on your dash, please sign up to my tinyletter.
listen here
Don't Start Now - Dua Lipa: Dua Lipa said disco lives. I absolutely love this song, it’s rock solid disco without being throwback or ironic about it. The way this song starts with the first line of the chorus and then launches into the verse and only gives you the full chorus later feels like that thing movie trailers do now where they give you a little trailer before the trailer for some reason. It’s also something I’ve never heard before, and it gives the song a very fun structure in the intro where it has two different levels of elevation it can drop down to before the bass properly drops in. I think Dua Lipa understands something fundamental about being a pop singer: literally the only thing you have to do is make bangers. She has basically zero personality and was criticised massively around New Rules for having zero stage presence (which she's definitely gotten better at since) but I kind of like it like that - she's just an unknowable blank canvas that's not particularly interested in any kind of narrative, she just makes bangers.
Mirage (Don't Stop) - Jessie Ware: Jessie Ware has been putting out some extremely good singles since her last album and this song is another. It’s the kind of smooth neo-soul that Jungle is pioneering but the way this song is structured is really beautiful; it gives the ‘don’t stop moving’ part a lot of space early on before it really gets to take hold and take over the second half of the song - it gives the whole song this feeling of disco evolution and the song going on and on and changing rather than static pop.
What A Fool Believes - Aretha Franklin: I can’t believe I’ve never heard Aretha’s version of What A Fool Believes before. It’s amazing. It’s the best kind of cover where you just basically do the song exactly the same but better in every single way. Push the tempo slightly, put big brass in it, make the bass hot as hell, sing the hell out of it, add a sax solo obviously. She takes such liberty with the rhythm of the vocals and it gives this whole song this great swooping and diving energy that just uplifts in such a beautiful way.
Walking Into Sunshine (Larry Levan 12” Mix) - Central Line: Something I love about this song is the crowd noise that breaks in with a ‘woo’ near the beginning. It’s such a strange little detail that instantly injects so much life and love into the track. It positions it at a party rather than a studio from the outset and somehow that mindset carries through the whole rest of the song even though the crowd noise only lasts a couple of seconds until they reconvene right at the very end.
Freedom - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five: There was a time in the history of rap music where some kind of government mandate demanded that every song go for at least 7 minutes, so you ended up with great songs like this where they spend a good couple minutes in the middle killing time by going through everyone’s star sign and then asking the crowd their star sign too. Also they appear to have recorded their own kazoos on the track over the kazoos in the sample, which is a lesson in good production everyone take.
Freedom Funk It Up Freedom - Freedom: I was looking up where the sample on that Grandmaster Flash song Freedom was from and it turns out it’s from this band called Freedom. Easy enough. This isn’t the song Freedom samples though, this is Freedom’s other song Freedom Funk It Up Freedom. It’s fucking hot and contains maybe the livest crowd I’ve ever heard, they are just going absolutely nuts the whole time and it only helps the energy of the song which is already off the charts.
Set Guitars To Kill (Live) - And So I Watch You From Afar: For the 10th anniversary of their debut album, And So I Watch You From Afar just played the whole thing front ot back and put it out as a live album, and it’s amazing. They’re an instrumental band that’s always emphasised the rock part of post-rock, in the same space as bands like 65daysofstatic and Russian Circles but not so self-serious about it, just big honking rock and roll tunes with a surprising depth and complexity to them that never get bogged down in ambient buildups or the other space-making trappings of post-rock. Their debut album has always been my favourite of theirs because it felt the most ‘live’ and wasn’t as cleanly produced as their subsequent releases (which are still very good), and so this live version feels sort of like a definitive version for me, like this is how it was always meant to sound but they didn’t have enough fans to do the ‘woo!’ part properly yet, which is one of the most purely joyful moments in music.
Bullet The Blue Sky (Live) - U2: I saw U2 this week for the second time in my life and guess what: they’re still great. Even though they’re old as fuck and Bono is getting stranger and stranger they’ve still got it. They have a very good bit of stage design going with this current tour where for a big chunk of it they’re out on a little platform in the middle of everyone with no screens or fancy lights and it’s one of the most effective ways I’ve seen of making an arena show feel like an actual intimate experience. I was a million miles away and Bono looked like an ant more than usual but the energy still came across. Then, when they do the Joshua Tree Start To Finish part of the show they have big visuals for every song but it’s still pretty light on actual cameras on the band, which I think works really well - a sort of best of both worlds where you get the arena show but the actual band performance. This song was a highlight for me, and they’ve somehow managed to make it even more ferocious now than ever before. It got extremely noisy, far noisier than you’d ever expect from U2 at least and really amped up the swirling energy that I’ve always loved about this song. People accuse U2's politics of being too wide ranging, and it's well founded they're the prototypical 'heal the world' rock stars - even in this song and the way they've repurposed its messages to fit various political causes over the years they've tried to dilute it, but this feels to me like a song that you can't wash the meaning out of no matter how hard you try. It's one of the best and most direct criticisms of American evil put to song, and it's an arena song that doesn't particularly have an arena melody to it. Especially in the Joshua Tree/Rattle And Hum era, U2 have always been captivated by the American mythos but have never been able to completely ingratiate themselves as an American Rock Band because they're not and I think that point of difference in identity has them uniquely positioned to criticise the American mythos as well. They can have it both ways because they can't fully have it, so in this song the circle of American violence is complete in the women and children who run from the American fighter planes into the arms of America as refugees. Bono's actually mad, which is a nice change of pace from love healing the world.
Gingerly - Enemies: I love this Enemies album so much. A sweet spot between post-rock and midwest emo math guitar, and listening to it now this song really stood out in a way it hasn’t before. It turns up at a good spot in the album just as you might be getting tired of the twinkly clean guitars that characterise the rest of it and burns a hole in the speaker with that distorted bass and siren guitar sound.
You Look Certain (I’m Not So Sure) - WXAXRXP Session - Mount Kimbie: I think every band should get the chance to re-record their album a year or two after they’ve put it out, once they’ve had a chance to really sit with the songs for a while and figure out exactly how they work because this version is just so much better than the album version (which was already great!). The guitar sound is so much bigger, properly leaning into the post-punk idea they were only exploring on the album, and the vocals are so much stronger and more up front which makes it feel so much more like a full song than an experiment. This whole Warp Session EP is fantastic and I’ve been listening to it on repeat, it’s so great that they’ve morphed from this insular electronic duo into a proper band over the years and I'm excited to see where they'll take it next.
Peace To All Freaks - of Montreal: The new of Montreal single is great. Embracing an 80s dance vibe and immediately turning his back on it in the opening lines and not going out because he needs to educate himself instead. I love this song, an unironic and non-cheesy rallying against negativity which is a lot harder to do with earnesty than they make it sound here.
Taipei - Social Climbers: Thankyou to my friend and yours agrifuture for this recommendation. Social Climbers played an odd and paranoid version of art rock in the early 80s that on this song at least sounds more like modern opera trying to fit itself to a rock band than anything else. I can also say with confidence this is the only song I’ve ever heard where someone sends a quiche back in the middle of it.
Mad Eyed Screamer - The Creatures: I’ve never gotten much into Siouxie And The Bashees, they're probably somewhere on my list of bands to have a deep three week long obsession with somewhere in the future, but for now my biggest exposure to them is the time The Weeknd sampled them. I am, however, deeply interested in this drums and vocals only side project that Siouxie Sioux formed with her then-partner Budgie. I’m a big fan of any kind of restricted composition like this and I love this song. It’s so busy and the amount of reverb and extra percussion going on makes for this extremely chaotic, noisy vision of what is essentially a folk song in its lyric and melody.
Black Magic - Jarvis Cocker: I found out that the main guitar part in this song is sampled from Crimson & Clover by Tommy James and The Shondells. Which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, a rock song like this built around a sample. Not exactly sampling in order to recontextualise across genres or approaches but sampling to recontextualise in a lateral, parallel approach. I love this song because his delivery is so feverish and impassioned it really does feel like he’s seen beyond the veil and come back without the language or capacity to explain what he saw, only the passion.
Year In Pictures - Dick Diver: Every year since this album came out it's shown up somewhere in my Spotify most listened list at the end of the year. It's surprising because I don't think of it as one of my all time favourites when it definitely is, it's such an easy listen that it just comes and goes pleasantly. This song is kind of about that feeling I guess, of things just happening and time just passing pleasantly enough year on year, everthing in its own time while the past disappears and doesn't matter anymore. "Whatever happens, I think everything will"
Heart - Bertie Blackman: I love the percussion in this song, the same propulsive clapping-centred beat that makes Single Ladies so good with the dark grinding bass underneath it that just pulses malevolently until the gearshift of the chorus where it morphs immediately into this 60s soul version of itself, with the ooh la la backing vocals and everthing, and that disonnance between the two styles drives the song for me. Where the verse lays out the evil plainly and the music matches, the chorus accentuates it in wide eyed irony "I know there's something sick with what I've been sold" sung with a smile and showgirl backing vocals.
Love Lockdown - Kanye West: Something I think we’re all learning as Kanye loses his mind completely on the world stage is that Kanye has always been insane. He has always had an unnervingly powerful self-belief and unwavering vision that has up until recently been what made him such a unique and era-defining artist. After the radical directions of MBDTF and Yeezus it’s sort of hard to remember just how radical 808s And Heartbreaks was at the time because unlike the self aware harshness and strangeness of the other two it was also so pop adjacent, because of its 80s synthpop influence but also because of the way it (and T-Pain) impacted all other pop music of the time. The instrumentation on this song is still so staggering, even just the pitched kick at the centre I could listen to on loop forever I think.
It Might Be Time - Tame Impala: Absolutely cannot wait for the new Tame Impala if this and Patience are any indication. The absolutely huge blown out drums on this are so good and remind me of something I’ve been trying to place for weeks and can’t. Maybe a Chemical Brothers song or some kind of big beat era thing. I think of Kevin Parker and Adam Granduciel from The War On Drugs as the same kind of guys, absolute craftsmen studio nerds that are completely obsessed with sound but unlike most other guys of that genre are actually great songwriters as well. Long haired studio hermits that emerge every few years to bless us all.
Never Again - Kelly Clarkson: I’ve been trying to decide whether this or Since U Been Gone is a better song and I’ve settled on this having the superior verses and Since U Been Gone the better chorus. The absolute venom in the lyrics is incredible. “I hope the ring you gave to her turns her finger green. I hope when you’re in bed with her you think of me” is like.. the most metal opening I’ve ever heard. She literally sings “You’ll die together, but alone” in the second verse, jesus christ.
Giant Swan - The Blood Brothers: I found out recently from reading the wiki article on screamo (which like almost all wiki articles about music genres is about 60% artists claiming that genres are fake and critics coining new genre names half in jest) that The Blood Brothers were apparently part of a screamo subgenre called Sass, which is a term I have never heard before in my life and certainly never heard in the heyday of the style. You learn something every day I suppose. “It originated as an opposing style of hardcore punk to the machismo in heavy hardcore scenes. It takes influence from genres such as post-punk, new wave, disco, electronic, dance-punk, emoviolence, grindcore, metalcore and heavy hardcore. The genre is characterized by often incorporating overtly flamboyant mannerisms, erotic lyrics featuring sexual tension, and a lisping vocal style. The genre is also noted for its "spastic edge", blast beats, chaotic guitars, danceable beats and the use of synthesizers.” My understanding is that when emo went mainstream and the split between ‘emo’ as a music and ‘scene’ as a fashion occurred, this is the music that emerged from the middle ground. Turning against the masculinity of their screamo forebears and toward the queer aesthetics of scene, the resulting style was still furious and violent but furious with a light cabaret (but like, if cabaret was good and not just a guy in a top hat emoting, a different style of emo that Panic! At The Disco famously pioneered) and violent in a psychedelic, surreal way that set it apart from the depressed and black aesthetics of the rest of emo. I love The Blood Brothers and have never found another band like them in terms of lyrical inventiveness and sheer vocal insanity, the characteristic shrill falsetto that sporadically turns to screams is an amazing choice that’s incredible it works at all. This song especially stands out as unique even amongst the chaos of their discography. The loping lounge feel in the first half, coupled with the properly surreal description of the giant swan in the lyrics establishes such an strange and dark cabaret mood that makes this song so oddly singular to me.
The Ripper - The Used: I really appreciate the production on this whole album, it is so overdone and hyperactive that it creates this irrepressible momentum because something is always happening. The songs themselves are incredibly compressed in structure and extremely hook heavy, and it feels like to counteract and complement that approach they‘ve been gone over bar by bar finding every possible spot to add interest. Dynamics shifting, drums filtering and then revealing themselves, choirs appearing from this air for two lines. Guitar squeals fly in and out in the background and the bass suddenly becomes extremely chunky in parts. The whole mix gets sucked down a black hole and then a little glockenspiel outlines the vocal melody in the background for a second leading back into a huge chorus. Everything happen in this short song. It’s an interesting approach that can be overwhelming, but it has undeniable results.
Ilana - Mdou Moctar: Mdou Moctar rocks because he takes a big power chord riff like the one at the start of this song that could just as easily start a Thin Lizzy song and then immediately discards it and twists a melting solo that crosses time and space for the rest of the song instead.
Ancestral Recall (feat. Saul Williams) - Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah: The press release for this album says: “In its inception, Ancestral Recall was built as a map to de-colonialize sound; to challenge previously held misconceptions about some cultures of music; to codify a new folkloric tradition and begin the work of creating a national set of rhythms; rhythms rooted in the synergy between West African, First Nation, African Diaspora/Caribbean rhythms and their marriage to rhythmic templates found in trap music, alt-rock, and other modern forms. It is time we created a sound that dispels singular narratives of entire peoples and looks to finally represent the wealth of narratives found throughout the American experience. One that shows that all forms of expression in sound are valid, as all people are." All that and a bit of spoken word at the start that sounds like Hannibal Buress’ Morpheus Walruses rap and I’m sold. I’m such a fan of jazz like this that purposefully opens itself up to the influence of the modern world and modern tradition, and the percussion work across this album in particular is so unique and really does what he set out to do in my opinion, bringing the rhythms of tradition into a modern context seamlessly.
Spider Hole - Billy Woods & Kenny Segal: I only found out about Billy Woods this month and I’m surprised I’ve never heard of him before because he feels like the middle of the venn diagram between Earl Sweatshirt, Aesop Rock and Death Grips. This flat out sounds like a Death Grips song played at half speed. The justified paranoia and anger that runs through this whole album is palpable and jumbled, centring around a feeling of lashing out in a moment of hopelessness because you don’t know what else you can do. "4 million USD hovering over some mud huts, it's nuts, it's not the heat it's the dust" is one of the most evocative lines of the year for me.
El Toro Combo Meal (feat. Mavi) - Earl Sweatshirt: When this new earl EP came out I listened to it 4 times in a row because it is just so compulsively brilliant. He’s refining his style more and more with every release and he’s honed it to this fine point now where every song is so super dense in its lyrical content and production that a full length release would almost be too much. There’s just so much to absorb here. Mavi’s verse is incredible too. I’ve never heard of him before but I’m a big supporter now. The beats too, through this whole EP are the kind that sound like a radio stuck between stations - looping snatches of vocals and drums drowned out in tape hiss where the beat is only a suggestion that Mavi and Earl both glide over on some sort of metric modulation and only land every now and then just to take off again.
Drug Dealer - Slowthai: Slowthai is so full of fire on this song it's scary. Facing a dead end future down and screaming that something's gotta change, and that he's the one to do it.
Lighthouse (feat. Rico Nasty, Slowthai and ICECOLDBISHOP) - Take A Daytrip: I have never heard of Take A Daytrip before this song but doing some research it turns out I have heard them, because they produced Panini by Lil Nas X. I have also never heard of ICECOLDBISHOP before but the way he brings an absolutely deranged verse on this song has made me an instant fan. I love this trio of features: three out there, huge personality voices at the outer limits of mainstream rap that in their oddness complement each other perfectly.
Rich Girl - Michie One & Louchie Lou: Something I learned this month was that Rich Girl by Gwen Stefani isn't a direct rip of If I Were A Rich Man from Fiddler On The Roof, it actually samples this song which acts as a sort of bridge between the two, and I think there's something interesting in the transfer of intention between the three songs, lyrically and musically. In the original his conception of a rich man is someone who can afford to have lots of ducks and geese, eat well and have enough time to pray because he doesn't have to work, then in the Michie One & Louchie Lou version rich is being able to feed your family and start a school (as well as play the horses and never lose), and in the Gwen Stefani version rich is having a house in Hollywood and London, clearing out designer stores, and buying four Harajuku girls and naming them Love, Angel, Music and Baby. It spirals up mercilessly from geese to, I guess, human trafficking. Musically there's a transformation as well, where the jewishness of the 'daidle daidle deedle daidle dumb' in the orginal is changed to a 'na na na na na' in this version and only a part of the original melodic lilt remains, a part that is completely ironed out in the Gwen Stefani version's 'na na na na na's. The downsides of wealth morph too, in the original it's simply not a part of God's plan, in this version it can't buy love, is the root of all evil (is a worldwide thing / rich is getting richer while the poor are getting stink) and only leads to more trouble (you reap but you never did sow / rich today you could be poor tomorrow / mind your back and watch your enemies grow) but in the Gwen Stefani version being rich is amazing on its own and the only thing that can top it is your love.
Santa Teresa - EOB: Tricked into enjoying ambient side projects once again. Ed O'Brien from Radiohead's new side project came up on my Discover Weekly without me realising it was him and I absolutely loved it. It’s expansive and cinematic and nice in a way that feels rare in ambient experimental stuff like this, to not be morose or depressing and gloomy for its own sake. It’s sharp and angular, or as sharp and angular as a song as slow moving as this can be and reminds me in part of HEALTH’s Max Payne 3 soundtrack, and Emma Ruth Rundle’s Electric Guitar One which are both masterpieces on their own.
Rough Sleeper - Burial: Reading Mark Fisher’s Ghosts Of My Life I was pleasantly surprised to see his Burial interview in there that I remember reading years and years ago before I knew who Mark Fisher was. I’ve thought of parts of that article here and there ever since and finally placing it in the wider context of Mark’s work was very satisfying, it’s funny how people come back to you in different forms over your lifetime. I don’t listen to Burial much now, or at least not as much as I used to at the height of my depression a few years ago where he was on near constant repeat and as a result his music became completely waterlogged with the feeling of that time and I couldn’t listen to him at all for a while without the memories completely marring any appreciation. But time passes as it does and it’s a nice feeling to finally be able to listen to Untrue again and not have it be so permanently soaked with memories of the worst time of my life, and now with a different mindset and viewpoint I can really see different sides of his music. Where before all I could hear was the bleak and empty future haunted by the ghosts of the past, now new colours appear - a warmth of hazy, pleasant memory and imagination. Reds and oranges creep into the black and grey and this song can feel like staying under covers while it storms outside instead of standing in the rain.
Night MXCMPV1 P74 - Venetian Snares & Daniel Lanois: I really don’t think I’ll ever hear another album like this in my life. The push and pull of the humanity of Lanois’ pedal steel and the digital nightmare of Venetian Snares percussion is just so engaging, and the moments where they overlap and move together in harmony contrast so beautifully with the times they feel like they’re playing two different songs altogether. Then they overlap, the effects overpower the steel guitar and it moves into a leaping angular digital realm and the percussion coalesces into an altogether human rush, or as human as Venetian Snares can be.
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord - Marisa Anderson: I can't find the quote but somewhere when she was doing interviews about this album Traditional And Public Domain songs, Marisa Anderson said part of the reason she likes traditional songs so much is because when she was coming up and playing in cafes around town she mistakenly thought she'd have to pay royalties if she did covers of popular songs, so she only did public domain songs instead.
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord - Johnny Cash: Another side of Were You There When They Crucified My Lord, one that expands magically into an amazing many-layered harmony led by June’s high and lonesome howl.
See That My Grave's Kept Clean - Blind Lemon Jefferson: Jefferson was buried at Wortham Negro Cemetery in 1929. His grave was unmarked until 1967, when a Texas historical marker was erected in the general area of his plot; however, the precise location of the grave is still unknown. By 1996, the cemetery and marker were in poor condition, and a new granite headstone was erected in 1997. The inscription reads: "Lord, it's one kind favour I'll ask of you, see that my grave is kept clean." In 2007, the cemetery's name was changed to Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery, and his gravesite is kept clean by a cemetery committee in Wortham.
The Giza Power Plant - Blood Incantation: What I find so appealing about Blood Incantation is how dedicated they are. Zealots to the cult of being long haired death metal guys who wholeheartedly and sincerely believe in interdimensional aliens and the pyramids being the remnants of an ancient advanced technology. The dedication extends to them being maybe some of the best players in the genre I’ve ever heard, and them recording this whole album analog live in studio is such a feat of performance that adds another layer of intensity to this already extremely intense music.
listen here
110 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
powergirlsz
Puff [hiatus]
gyllenhuiast
Chaos is order, yet undeciphered.
s0uei
夜は眠れるかい?
itortig
just otp things
limitedseries
you’re still staring